

'o . , * * A ' ' <* '* 

o » * « ♦ <f> 

-b/ ; 







» i* •* v v % .* 


,* .*•*♦ ■*£ 


w 



A^ V C°".S ^ 

<d <> # ^ 

: » 

W'IK8555s^ w ^ «V~ w c^A - V^'//I\f *. *2> ~yA vi^i^nv^s^^'O 

► x% *]VwcsSf** fN ^ ^ yZy/JP&± v? ^ * 

®*. *.tv> .0° % <$> °o '*jTTi»* .( 

5 " ^ j. 0 * , * • •- % V s >iV-, o' 



° v< v : 

* $ d ^ j . ~‘‘ 

^ °- '° * * * A 

♦ O .V& 6 °"», <£ 

■» O J V’ • ^ 

w 

0 sP VV >' _ 

- * \ < ^ y>jrs 

«•*. *> 4 > V ,*Vt. ^ *" ^ ^ *"’ <* 




••. *W ; 

• c 5 >^ o 

* <-7 <>v o 

_ * <t v fit * 

'..** < 0 ^ c>. "o’.** 



* Xft * 

: 

; a v *V : 
«*. * v \?> \ 




.4 O*. 

^ vft to 





.w, ^O 

O j 

• "ov* : 

o ^-w.° 0 ^ ^ • 

0 * P * ° * 0 ° 4 p 

*- Vi? . 


A& C °"° « <K 
{> • t 


’ * < f ? o 




* ^ c£ * 

: * v> 


• aV^* 

♦ ** ^ • 


o # a 


a\ 


<\ . 



<> -o 


: %/ ; 

° £ O 

^ °. 



% VJ 82 JS*^*' „y o ♦. 

^ *•<’* -V^ °A *»Vo® ,0 

^ * *-*a.j r V>v ^ ^ J 


* 



o w a 


'A • 

<J> , t ' # * ^o 


* ^ ^ *** 

: ^ d* * 

• 4 O ' * 

> a* «* 

** *> c\ * 

*' I 1° C ti A * » " 0 

v' V‘ % Oft 

%/ : 

<£ V ° 

Cp o r 

^ *%> **«. 7 *' A 

. »• » * - ^ A % 6 o w ® * ~ . 

1 * K-i Y* • ' *P 


A . 




* ** 




• A** 

‘ ** ^ 


> ^ i 

^ * ‘^v— % * r cv 

^ •'’* 

* •_ > *> v ' 

*«* ^ * 

°. ^ . 


° A* ^ ° 

fc /»y i: 


<* *'.•«* A 0 , % ' 

4 Cl # • 1 1 ^ O te 


O • A 



* / 

. a 0 V » ' * 

\/ * 



Y o j *o *\* A *<.*** < 

{&..•■••* * 0 . > v <, » " • - ^ «* 


r0*O ry . ft* 




& V 6 O « 9 4 <$> 

♦ o 'jsSSSW* ^ 




o V 

°- \/^^* ^ % 

< > £ * * * ^ 



* A ^ o » 








: \ 



















IS CENTS. 


Mo. 400. 



TU -WEEKLY PuBLICKTlorf Of TtyE BE5T CO^Sttr e^TANjMFfrUTi 


Annual Subscription, $3l).UU. 


GLEN 


ECHOES 


HARRIET MARTINEAU 


AUTHOR OF 

TALES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
“A HISTORY OF ENGLAND,” &c., &c. 


Entered at the Post Office, N. Y., as second-class mattei 
Copyright, 1883, by John W. Lovkll Co. 


+ To i\N • w • l ov£ l, l • Company 

v r -■= , =■ =-^- - 14- 6-16 VESEY STRE1 





wwza 


A neat CLOTH BINDING for this volume can be obtained from an.y bookseller or newsdealer, price 15cts 






LOVELL’S LIBRARY-CATALOGUE 


1. Hyperion 20 

2. Outre-Mer 20 

3. The Happy Boy 10 

4. Arne 10 

5. Frankenstein 10 

6. TheLast of theMohicans.20 

7. Ciytie 20 

8. The Moonstone, Part 1 . 10 

9. The Moonstone, Part II. 10 

10. Oliver Twist 20 

11. The Coming Race 10 

12. Leila 10 

13. The Three Spaniards. . .20 

14. The Tricks of the Greeks.20 

15. L’Abbe Constantin 20 

16. Freckles 20 

17. The Dark Colleen 20 

18. They were Married .... 10 

19. Seekers After God 20 

20. The Spanish Nun 10 

21. Green Mountain Boys. .20 

22. Fleurette 20 

Z3. Second Thoughts ..20 

24. The New Magdalen ....20 

25. Divorce 20 

26. Life of Washington 20 

27. Social Etiquette 15 

28. Single Heart, Double 

Face 10 

29. Irene ; or, The Lonely 

Manor 20 

30. Vice Versa 20 

31. Ernest Maltravers 20 

32. The Haunted House... 10 

33. John Halifax 20 

34. 800 Leagues on the 

Amazon 10 

35. The Cryptogram 10 

36. Life of Marion 20 

37. Paul and Virginia 10 

38. A Tale of Two Cities .... 20 

39. The Hermits 20 

40. An Adventure in Thule, 

etc 

41. A Marriage in High Life2o 

42. Robin 20 

43. Two on a Tower 20 

44. Rasselas 10 

45. Alice ; a sequel to Er- 

nest Maltravers 20 

46. Duke of Kandos 20 

47. Baron Munchausen 10 

48. A Princess of Thule 20 

49. The Secret Despatch.. . .20 

50. Early Days of Christian- 
ity, 2 Parts, each 20 

51. Vicar of Wakefield.... . . 10 

52. Progress and Poverty. . .20 

53. The Spy 20 

54. East Lynne 20 

55. A Strange Story 20 

56. Adam Bede, Part 1 15 

Adam Bede, Part II 15 

57. The Golden Shaft 20 

58. Portia 

59. Last Days of Pompeii. . .20 

60. The Two Duchesses. . . .26 

61. TomBrown’sSchoolDays.20 

62. Wooing O’t, 2 Pts. each. 15 

63. The Vendetta .....20 

64. Hypatia, Part 1 15 

Hypatia,- Part II*. ... . 15 


65. Selma ..15 

66. Margaret and her Brides- 
maids 20 

67. Horse Shoe Robinson, 

2 Parts, each 15 

6S. Gulliver’s Travels 20 

6g % Amos Barton 10 

70. The Berber 20 

71. Silas Marner ....10 

72. Queen of the County . . .20 

73. Life of Cromwell 15 

74. Jane Eyre .20 

75. Child’sHist’ry of Engl’d.20 

76. Molly Bawn 20 

77. Pillone 15 

78. Phyllis 20 

79. Romola, Part I 15 

Romola, Part II 15 

80. Science in ShortChapters.20 

81. Zanom 20 

82. A Daughter of Heth .... 20 

83. Right and Wrong Uses of 

the Bible 20 

84. Night and Morning.Pt. 1 . 15 
NightandMorningjPt.II 15 

85. Shandon Bells 20 

86. Monica 10 

87. Heart and Science 20 

88. The Golden Calf 20 

89. The Dean’s Daughter. . .20 

90. Mrs. Geoffrey ....20 

91. Pickwick Papers, Part I.20 
Pickwick Papers, Part 1 1.20 

92. Airy, Fairy Lilian 20 

93. Macleod of Dare 20 

94. Tempest Tossed, Part I.20 
Tempest Tossed, P’t II .20 

95. Letters from High Lat- 

itudes 20 

96. Gideon Fleyce 20 

97. India and Ceylon 20 

98. The Gypsy Queen 20 

99. The Admiral’s Ward; ... 20 

100. Nimport, 2 Parts, each .. 1 5 

101. Harry Holbrooke. 20 

102. Tritons, 2 Parts, each .. 15 

103. Let Nothing You Dismay. 10 

104. LadyAudley’s Secret. ..20 

105. Woman’s Place To-day. 20 

106. Dunallan, 2 parts, each. 15 

107. Housekeeping and Home 

making. ....'. 15 

108. No New Thing ...20 

109. TheSpoopendykePapers.20 

no. False Hopes ••••15 

hi. Labor and Capital 20 

1 12. Wanda, 2 parts, each ... 15 

1 13. More Words about Bible. 20 

114. Monsieur Lecocq, P’t. I.20 
Monsieur Lecocq, Pt.II.20 

115. An Outline of Irish Histi 10 

116. The Lerouge Case 20 

1 1 7. Paul Clifford 20 

118. A New Lease of Life.. .20 

1 19. Bourbon Lilies 20 

120. Other People’s Money. .20 

12 1. Lady of Lyons 10 

122. Ameline de Bourg .15 

123. A Sea Queen 20 

124. The Ladies Lindores. . .20 

125. Haunted Hearts.. 10 

126. Loys, Lord Beresford . . . 20 


127. Under Two Flags, Pt I. 20 
Under Two Flags, Pt II. 20 

128. Money : • • •; 13 

129. In Peril of His Life 20 

130. India; What can it teach 

us? 20 

13 1. Jets and Flashes 20 

132. Moonshine and Margue- 
rites 10 

133. Mr. Scarborough’s 
Family, 2 Parts, each . . 15 

134. Arden 3 

135. Tower of Percemont. . . .20 

136. Yolande 20 

137. Cruel London 20 

138. The Gilded Clique 20 

139. Pike County Folks 20 

140. Cricket on theH arth..io 

141. Henry Esmond 20 

142. Strange Adventures of a 

Phaeton 20 

143. Denis Duval 10 

144. OldCuriosityShop, P't 1 . 15 
01 dCuriosityShop,P’rt II. 15 

145. Ivanhoe, Part I 15 

Ivanhoe, Part II 15 

146. White Wings 20 

147. The Sketch Book ..20 

148. Catherine 

149. Janet’s Repentance 10 

150. Barnaby Rudge, Part I.. 15 
Barnaby Rudge, Part II. 15 

151. Felix Holt 20 

152. Richelieu 10 

153. Sunrise, Part 1 15 

153. Sunrise, Part II 15 

154. Tour of the World in 80 

Days 20 

155. Mystery of Orcival 20 

156. Love), the Widower. ... 10 

157. Romantic Adventures of 

a Milkmaid 10 

158. DavidCopperfield, Part I.20 
DavidCopperfield,P’rt II. 20 

159. Charlotte Temple . . . . 10 

160. Rienzi, 2 Parts, each ... 15 

161. Promise of Marriage. ... 10 

162. Faith and Unfaith 20 

163. The Happy Man 10 

164. Barry Lyndon 20 

165. Eyre’s Acquittal 10 

166. 20,000 Leagues Under the 

Sea 20 

167. Anti-Slavery Days 20 

168. Beauty’s Daughters 20 

169. Beyond the Sunrise 20 

170. Hard Times 20 

171. Tom Cringle’s Log 20 

172. Vanity Fair 30 

173. Lbiderground Russia 20 

174. Middlemarch,2 Pts.each.20 

175. Sir Tom 20 

176. Pelham 

177. The Story of Ida ... 10 

178. Madcap Violet 20 

179. The Little Pilgrim 10 

180. Kilmeny 20 

181. Whist, or Bumblcpuppy ?, 10 

182. That Beautiful Wretch. .20 

183. Her Mother’s Sin 20 

184. Green Pastures, etc 20 

185. Mysterious Island. Pt I.ij 




QECRET 

OF 

gEAUTY. 

How to Beautify the Complexion. 


All women know that it is beauty, rather than genius, which all generations 
of men have worshipped in the sex. Can it be wondered at, then, that so much 
of woman’s time and attention should be directed to the means of developing 
and preserving that beauty I The most important adjunct to beauty is a clear, 
smooth, soft and beautiful skin. With this essential a lady appears handsome, 
even if her features are not perfect. 

Ladies afflicted with Tan, Freckles, Rough or Discolored Skin, should lose 
no time in procuring and applying 


LAIRD’S BLOOM OF YOUTH. 


It will immediately obliterate all such imperfections, and is entirely harm- 
less. It has been chemically analyzed by the Board of Health of New York City, 
and pronounced entirely free from any material injurious to the health or skin. 

Over two million ladies have used this delightful toilet preparation, and in 
every instance i t has given entire satisfaction. Ladies, if you desire to be beauti- 
ful, give LAIRD’S BLOOM OF YOUTH a trial, and be convinced of its won- 
derful efficacy. Sold by Fancy Goods Dealers and Druggists everywhere. 

Price, 75c. per Bottle. Depot, 83 John St., N. Y. 


FAIR FACES, 

And fair, in the literal and most pleasing sense, are 
those kept fresh and pure by the use of 

BUCHAN'S CARBOLIC TOILET SOAP 

This article, which for the past fifteen years has 
had the commendation of every lady who uses it, is 
made from the best oils, combined with just the 
proper amount of glycerine and chemically pure 
carbolic acid, and is the realization of a PER- 
FECT SOAP. 



It will positively keep the skin fresh, clear, and white; removing tan, 
freckles and discolorations from the skin; healing all eruptions; prevent chap- 
ping or roughness ; allay irritation and soreness ; and overcome all unpleasant 
effects from perspiration. 

Is pleasantly perfumed ; and neither when using or afterwards is the slight- 
est odor of the acid perceptible. 

BUCHAN’S CARBOLIC DENTAL SOAP 

Cubans and preserves the teeth; cools and refreshes the month; sweetens the 
breath, and is in every way an unrivalled dental preparation. 

BUCHAN’S CARBOLIC MEDICINAL SOAP cures all 
Eruptions and Skin Diseases. 


u. 





V * ' » ’ / ‘ , _ | ' 

f- 

■ J / K . V * ) . ' ? V A v r 1 ' ^ **■)** *L^ ,A/ 4: 

r 

* 




# 





* 










a 







f • M, I 








I 




V 




I 



















V 
















\ 












*• 



























% 





































V 


• \ 













i fc 












I 









\ 













v 

Tftf 

CONTENTS. 

% ' 

UiV , 

lnsh Economy 

CHAPTER L 

.... t 

Irish Liabilities 

CHAPTER IL 

- - - 26 


CHAPTER III. 

Irish Adventure 50 


Irish Crime 

CHAPTER IV 

83 


CHAPTER V. 

Irish Retribution - - 100 

CHAPTER VI. 


Irish Responsibility - 


122 


6 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VIL 

Irish Impolicy - . I 

CHAPTER VIIJ 

Irish Fatality - . 157 

CHAPTER IX, 

T 

Irish Disaffection - . *6/ 



* 8 ' 




; o 




✓ - 


I R E L AN D 


CHAPTER I. 

IRISH ECONOMY. 

The Glen of the Echoes, — a title which con- 
veys more to an English ear than its Irish coun- 
terpart, is one of the most obscure districts of a 
remote county of the Green Island, of which 
little is heard on this side the Channel except 
during the periodical returns of famine, when 
the sole dependence of its miserable population 
is on public benevolence. This glen probably 
owes its name to its vicinity to the sea, whose 
boisterous waves, keeping up a perpetual as- 
sault, have worn the coast into deep bays, from 
the North Cape to Mizen-head, and whose 
hoarse music is chanted day and night, sum- 
mer and winter, from steep to steep along the 
shore. It is a rare thing for a traveller in the 
western counties of Ireland to behold a calm 
sea. Whatever the features of the land may be, 


8 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


— whether he passes through meadows and oat- 
fields, with villages and towns in the distance, 
or over black mountains and across shaking 
bogs, where a mud cabin here and there is the 
only vestige of human habitation, — the Atlantic 
is still swelling and lashing the cliffs, as if 
bringing its mighty force to a perpetual war 
against the everlasting hills. Such a traveller 
would have pronounced that the Glen of the 
Echoes was designed for no other purpose than 
to give perpetual tidings of this warfare ; for no 
place* could be more wild in aspect, or less ap- 
parently improved by being inhabited. It was 
a tract lying between the cliffs and the moun- 
tains, consisting partly of bog, and partly of 
cultivated patches of land, divided one from 
another by ditches, and here and there by a 
turf bank, which was the best kind of fence 
used within many miles, except on the grounds 
belonging to one or two mansions within sight 
and reach. Scarce a tree or a shrub was to be 
seen within the bounds of the glen, though 
tradition related that a vast forest had once 
extended along the sides of the mountains; 
which tradition was confirmed by the circum- 
stance that trees were easily found in the bog 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


9 


as often as the inhabitants were at a loss how to 
pass a ditch or drain, and there happened to be 
hands enough near to make a half-buried trunk 
into a temporary bridge, for the advantage of a 
short cut to any given spot. A resident pro- 
prietor, Mr. Rosso, had surrounded his house 
with young plantations ; but as these were inter- 
cepted from view by the shoulder of the moun- 
tain, they did not relieve the bleakness of the 
glen itself. The woods of another proprietor, 
Mr. Tracey, who had been for some years on 
the continent with his family, had been so 
effectually thinned by his agent, that little of 
them remained, and, in consequence, his man- 
sion, Woodland Lodge, might now have better 
borne the name of a lodge in the wilderness. 
Woodland Lodge was about half a mile distant 
from Mr. Rosso’s dwelling, and the contrast 
between the two was remarkable. The riding, 
driving, shooting, and fishing parties, in which 
the young Rossos were perpetually engaged, 
gave an appearance of bustle to the neighbor- 
hood of their residence ; and the fine growth 
of the plantations, the entireness of the stone 
fences, and the verdant crops of the surrounding 
fields, betokened good management: whereas 


10 


RISH ECONOMY. 


the shutters of the Lodge were forever closed ; 
grass flourished on the door-steps, and moss on 
the window-sills; lean cattle were seen lying 
about in the woods, or rubbing themselves 
against the bark-bound trees ; and goats, the 
most inveterate of destroyers, browsed among 
the ruins, which alone remained to mark the 
boundaries between corn-land and pasture, plan- 
tation and bog. The traveller’s greatest per- 
plexity was as to where the people dwelt whom 
he saw scattered in the fields or lying about on 
the only visible track by which he could traverse 
the glen, or assembled around the Lodge chap- 
el, if it chanced to be a holyday. It was only 
by close observation that he could perceive any 
other erections than the little school-house, 
built by Mr. Rosso, and the farm-house, where 
a tenant of the better sort lived, and where the 
priest boarded. To the accustomed eye, how- 
ever, a number of huts were visible on the 
mountain side, which were more like tufts of 
black turf than human dwellings. An occasion- 
al wreath of smoke, the neighborhood of goats, 
pigs, or a starved cow, marked them as the 
abodes of the tenantry of the glen, — a tenantry 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


11 


neither better nor worse off than that of many a 
district in the island. 

The school-house just mentioned had been 
built by Mr. Rosso, who, though himself a Pro- 
testant, wished his poor neighbors to have such 
an education as they were willing to receive^ 
though it was mixed with much that appeared 
to him very baneful superstition. To the aston- 
ishment, first, of the objects of his bounty, and, 
next, of his Protestant visiters, he appointed a 
Catholic teacher to this school, and interfered 
no further in its management than to see that 
the teacher was diligent, and that the school 
was kept open to as many children as chose to 
attend. The reasons he gave were, that there 
were none but Catholics within five miles, out 
of his own house, and that as his neighbors 
would at all events be Catholics, he saw no 
harm in giving them reading, writing, and arith- 
metic, in addition to that instruction, of a differ- 
ent kind, which their zealous priest, Father 
Glenny, took care that they should not be with- 
out. These reasons, whether sound or not, 
had no weight with his Protestant friends, who 
might, as they said, have forgiven him, if he 
had had the good of a tenantry of his own in 


12 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


view, but who began to doubt the goodness of 
his religion, morals, and politics, when they 
considered that he had no tenantry but a far- 
mer’s family or two, who did not need his assis- 
tance ; and that he was, therefore, gratuitously 
offering support to the most damnable faith in 
religion, and the most iniquitous creed in poli- 
tics, that had ever deserved the wrath of God 
in heaven and of man upon earth. Mr. Rosso 
very quietly went on, holding an occasional con- 
ference with Father Glenny on the state of the 
school, and stepping in sometimes as he passed, 
to hear how the spelling improved, and whether 
the children could be induced to give attention 
to something besides arithmetic, which is, almost 
universally, the favorite accomplishment of the 
Irish who have had the advantage of any school- 
ing at all. Father Glenny, and the young 
schoolmaster whom he had trained, always ap- 
peared glad to see Mr. Rosso, and even asked 
him occasionally to address the children, which 
he always took care to do so as to convey to 
them some useful information, or moral impres- 
sion, which Protestant and Catholic would equally 
allow to be good. Thus, as the parties concerned 
wrought their benevolent work without jostling 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


13 


or jarring, it mattered little what any one else 
had to say about it. When importuned upon 
the subject, Mr. Rosso endeavored to appease 
the inquirer by an acknowledgement that he might 
have found some difficulty if Protestant children 
had been brought to learn with Catholics, within 
so small a space, and with so few resources in 
the way of instruction ; but he never could 
admit the doubt of its being right to supply a 
Catholic education to a purely Catholic popu- 
lation. 

It was a much easier matter to the neighbor- 
ing cottiers to spare their children to the school, 
than it would have been if they had enjoyed a 
more prosperous condition. An English labor- 
er employs his boys and girls as soon as they 
are strong enough for work ; or, at least, has 
the excuse that he may do so : but an Irish cot- 
tier finds his business finished when he has dug 
and planted his potato-field, and lounges about 
till harvest; or, if he hires himself out to labor, 
does not find out that there is any thing for his 
girl to do but to milk the cow and boil the pot ; 
or for his boy but to feed the pig. This leisure, 
joined with the eagerness for learning which 
subsists among the Irish poor, kept Mr. Rosso’s 


14 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


school always full, and might, under good man- 
agement, have wrought a material improvement 
upon the rising generation : but it is too much 
the way with Irish 4 scholards ’ to be always 
reading, never learning; to be listening to le- 
gends, when they should be gaining know- 
ledge; and invoking the holy blood of Abel, 
instead of improving the powers which God has 
given to each of them for a far more natural 
and effectual dependance. The real advance- 
ment of the young folks of the glen was, there- 
fore, much less than it ought to have been, in 
return for the time bestowed ; and though 
some came out ready readers, and most fluent 
story-tellers, there was but little knowledge even 
among the oldest of them. 

Dora Sullivan was one of the most promising 
of the troop, and the master praised the pru- 
dence of her parents, and her own docility, for 
coming to the school as regularly as ever when 
she was past sixteen. It was feared that she 
would disappear when her only brother depart- 
ed for England, in hopes of making a little 
money to bring back to his father ; but Dora’s 
parents were proud of her, and anxious that the 
most should be made of her, and, therefore, 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


15 . 

spared her from home for the greater, part of 
every day, though she was now like an only 
child to them. There was another reason for 
their not grudging her absence, which was, that 
Dan Mahony, who lived in the next cabin, and 
had frequent access to Dora’s society, from be- 
ing the son of her father’s partner in his lease, 
had been long in love with Dora, and would 
have married her out of hand, if he had had so 
much as half an acre of ground to marry upon. 
All parties approved of the match ; but would 
not hear of its taking place till Dan had a roof 
of his own to lodge a wife under, and did what 
they could to separate the young folks, by keep- 
ing Dora at school, and encouraging Dan to go 
and seek his fortune at a distance for awhile; 
which the young man, after much murmuring, 
consented to do, upon a promise from both 
fathers that they would abstain from quarrelling 
about their partnership, or any thing else, during 
his absence: a promise which they afterwards 
declared it was rash to have given, and next to 
impossible to observe. They contrived, however, 
to keep within the terms of their vow, by vent- 
ing their wrath, in all difficulties, upon the third 
partner in their lease, Tim Blayney, who made 


16 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


an opportunity to elope before rent-day came 
round, leaving nothing but an empty cabin and 
a patch of exhausted soil for his creditors to 
wreak their vengeance on. 

These partnership tenancies were almost uni- 
versal in the district. In one or two cases there 
were as many as fourteen or sixteen tenants 
associated in one lease: in which case the 
disputes respecting the division of their little 
meadows, or the payment of dues, became so 
virulent, that the agent could get no rest from 
squabbles and complaints in his occasional visits; 
and the middlemen, to whom the rent was paid, 
adopted the practice of getting it as they could, 
without waiting for the decision of opposing 
claims, or regarding the protests of those whose 
property they seized. Sullivan might think 
himself fortunate in having no more than two 
partners, since he could not be made to pay 
more than three times his share of rent; and 
being under vow not to quarrel with one partner, 
and the other being beyond the reach of his ears 
and tongue, he was in an enviable situation com- 
pared with many of his neighbors. As to the 
middlemen who were over them, indeed, there 
was little to choose among them. All pleaded 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


17 


alike that they had theii* rents to pay to other 
middlemen, or to the landlord ; all were too busy 
to hearken to excuses, — too determined to be 
diverted from seizures, — too much accustomed 
to their business to regard appeals to their jus- 
tice .or their compassion. They were not all, 
or on all occasions, equally pressing as to time. 
Their urgency about their dues depended some- 
what upon their own resources, and much on 
those of the people under them. If they could 
afford to wait, and their debtors were likely not 
to be totally destitute sometime hence, the mid- 
dlemen mercifully consented to wait, for certain 
considerations, and with the prospect of extorting 
rich interest upon the payment thus delayed. 
The middleman, Teale, to whom Sullivan, Ma- 
hony, and Blayney paid their rents, was one of 
this merciful class. 

When Dora came home from the school one 
fine afternoon, she perceived from a distance, 
that Mr. Teale’s horse was standing within the 
enclosure, and grazing the roof of her father’s 
cabin. Her approach was .seen by Teale from 
the. door, for there was never a window in the 
place. His humor being propitiatory this day, 
he assailed Sullivan’s weak side : — 


18 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


4 Here sbe comes, — the pretty creature she 
is, that Dora of yours.’ 

4 She’s good, let alone her being pretty ; and 
’t is she will write the note and sign it all the 
same as me. Here, Dora, my darling, hold the 
pen and write as you’re bid, and show what a 
scholard Father Glenny has made of you.’ 

Dora, who was remarkably quiet and thought- 
ful for her years, and suited her deportment to 
the gravity of her mind, did not quicken her 
movements, but prepared to obey her father’s 
request. She slipped down the petticoat tail 
which she had worn as a hood, gave the pig a 
gentle rebuke with her bare foot, which sent 
him out at the door, and' room being thus found 
to turn about in, she made a table of her moth- 
er’s low stool, took the paper Mr. Teale offer- 
ed, dipped her pen in his inkhorn, and waited 
for directions. 

‘You have only to sign, you see,’ said Mr 
Teale, 4 “Dora Sullivan, for John Sullivan,” 
that’s all. ’ 

4 Hold your whisht, ’ cried the father : 4 you 
have had your time to write promises for me, 
Mr. Teale; but I’ve a scholard now of my own 
kin, and no occasion to be taken in with a scrap, 


IRISH ECONOMY. 19 

when I don’t know what ’s in it. So let Dora 
write after your words, Mr. Teale.’ 

c Pho, pho, Sullivan; — for what and for why 
do you misdoubt me this day ? Miss Dora will 
be more polite — and I so pressed for time.’ 

Dora’s politeness, however, disposed her to 
do as her father desired, and did not prevent 
her doing more. She wrote to Teale’s dicta- 
tion ; and, before signing, looked up at her 
father, and asked if it was meant that he should 
promise to pay, both for himself and partners, 
all that should be in arrears, as well as all pres- 
ently due (including the interest of the arrears), 
immediately after harvest, under penalty of 
seizure. 

‘I’m not clear of the meaning of it all, but 
I’m thinking it is much to pay, and more than 
we have to pay with, father ; that ’s all. ’ 

‘Be easy, Miss Dora, since it comes out of 
your own mouth that the meaning is not clear. 
Only sign, my jewel ; that ’s what is still to be 
done. ’ 

* But, father ’ 

‘ Quiet, my darling of the world, quiet ! for 
what should I do? Here’s Blayney, the scat- 
terbrain ! gone, the devil knows where, and left 


20 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


not a rag behind him ; and Mahony lias left the 
whole to me, entirely, the ruffian. And you 
would n’t have the beasts driven away, Dora, 
and we left without a sup to sleep upon — you 
would n’t, Dora ? ’ 

‘Come, sign, my jewel,’ said Teale, ‘and 
up with your pail to be milking the creatures, 
Dora, and that ’s better than seeing them lifted 
to the pound. ’ 

Dora still balanced the pen, vainly wishing 
that Dan was at hand to fulfil his father’s part 
of the contract. Sullivan urged her to finish. 
She begged to read it over once more aloud, 
and at the end asked if there was no way of 
making such an agreement as many made, that 
certain kinds of produce should constitute the 
rent, while the family lived as they could upon 
the rest, and so have nothing to do with coin, 
which she simply supposed was the cause of all 
the misery in the world. Some middlemen, 
she knew, took butter and pigs for the rent, and 
oats where there were any, and then there was 
no trouble about money. 

‘ With your leave, Miss Dora, we’ll hear 
what the priest has to say about tJnac another 
time ; for I suppose what you say is all one as 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


21 


listening to him ; and very natural : but I must 
be going, my jewel ; so give me my scrap, and 
no more words.’ 

As there was no help for it, Dora signed, and 
then saw the pen put into her father’s hand, 
that he might make his mark, without which 
Mr. Teale would not allow the business to be 
finished. She did not smile, as her mother did, 
at Sullivan’s joke about a raking fellow, like 
him, sitting down with a pen, like a priest or 
one of the priest’s scholards. When the mid- 
dleman was gone, and her father laughed at the 
easiness of putting a man off with a scrap of 
paper instead of the rent, she took up her pail 
to go and milk her lean kine. 

‘ Off with you, honey, and leave your sighs 
behind you,’ said her mother. ‘If I had be- 
gun as early as you, sighing and sighing, there 
would have been little breath left in my body 
by this. To-morrow or next day will do for 
care, honey. Go to your milking to-day, any- 
how.’ 

‘ By dad, honey, your mother known more 
trouble and sorrow by your time nor you, by 
reason she was my wife, and had babbies to lose 
in the fever. I would have dried up her tears 


22 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


in a hurry if she had no more to bestow them 
on nor you ; and so will Dan, by dad, if you’ve 
no better a welcome for him.’ 

Dora smiled, and went about her dairy 
affairs, her father following to help, in case the 
kine wanted lifting ; that is, in case they should 
be too weak from starvation to rise up at bid- 
ding to be milked. The poor animals being 
fairly set upon their legs, without much fear of 
falling, Sullivan directed his steps towards the 
last bush which was left in his field, and cut it 
down for fuel, not having turf enough dried to 
boil the pot this evening. 

Sullivan was not veiy fond of looking about 
him on his little farm, or of observing the por- 
tions of his partners. It was hard to say which 
was in the worst condition, or which might have 
been in the best if properly cultivated. Their 
nearness to the coast put them in the way of 
manure ; such part of the soil as was dry might 
have been made into fine grazing land by the 
frequent rains which fell in that district, or have 
answered for the growth of various crops in 
rotation ; and such as was wet might have been 
improved, to almost any extent, by the limestone 
from the neighborhood, or by fine sand from 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


23 


the beach. Instead of laying plans with pru- 
dence for their common advantage, however, 
and prosecuting them in harmony, the three 
partners made choice each of what his land 
should produce, and neither varied his crop from 
first to last. Their only agreement was to di- 
vide their portions by ditches, pronouncing a 
stone fence a trouble not to be thought of, turf 
banks a botheration, and a ditch the most ‘asy 
and nate to the hand. * This done, Mahony 
sowed barley every year, and every year less 
and less came up ; and that which did make a 
shift to grow yielded less and less meal, till he 
began to wonder what ailed the crop that it had 
come down from being food for man, to be 
nothing better than pig’s meat. Blayney tried 
his hand at oat culture with no better success 
than his neighbor, the produce being such as 
many a horse on the London road would look 
upon with disdain. Sullivan grew potatoes, as 
we have seen. While the land was in good 
heart, that is, for a season or two from the com- 
mencement of his lease, he had grown apple 
potatoes ; but when the soil became exhausted, 
he could raise only an inferior kind, which is 
far more fit for cattle than for men, and on 


24 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


which he and his family could not have subsist- 
ed, if it were not for the milk with which they 
varied their meals. Sullivan’s acre and half did 
not yield now more than eleven hundred stone ; 
and as the consumption amounted to more than 
four stone a-day, at fourteen pounds to the 
stone, — f. very moderate allowance for three 
hearty people, — there was no chance of paying 
the rent out of the crop, even if Sullivan had 
been answerable for nobody’s dues but his own. 
He depended upon his live stock to clear him 
with the middlemen ; or, rather, he depended 
upon nothing, but made a shift, when the time 
came near, to sell and raise the money some- 
how; and when that could not be done, he de- 
ferred the evil day, by giving his note of hand, 
as we have seen. Half these difficulties might 
have been avoided, if no one had stood between 
Sullivan and his landlord ; and the other half, if 
he had known how to make the best of his own 
resources. In the first place, Mr. Tracey would 
never have thought of asking such a rent as 
eight pounds per acre for such land ; and, in the 
next place, he would have been so far consider- 
ate as to encourage Sullivan to improve the 
land ; whereas the middleman under whom Mr 


IRISH ECONOMY. 


25 


Teale held the place, paid the landlord a mod- 
erate rent, and made his profit out of the higher 
rent he asked of Mr. Teale, who, in his turn, 
did the same by Sullivan and his partners: so 
that the poorest tenant paid the most, and the 
landlord got the least ; or, to put the matter in 
another light, the little farm was expected to 
support three families of tenants, and to pay rent 
to three landlords. Again : two of these land- 
lords, having only a temporary interest in the 
place, cared only for getting as much out of it as 
they could while connected with it, and had no 
view to its improvement, or regard for its per- 
manent value. This ruinous system has received 
a check by the operation of the Subletting Act ; 
but not before it has inflicted severe injuries on 
the proprietors of the soil, and never-to-be- 
forgotten hardships on their tenantry. 


26 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


CHAPTER II. 

IRISH LIABILITIES. 

Dan Mahony being fairly out of the ay, 
Dora’s parents agreed to her earnest request, 
countenanced by Father Glenny, that she might 
leave school, and try to earn somewhat where- 
with to help the rent. Dora now sat at her 
spinning-wheel almost the whole day; and her 
mother doing the same, a respectable addition 
was made by them to the few shillings Sullivan 
had been able to muster. The next was a fine 
potato season moreover, and Sullivan reasonably 
reckoned on being able to sell a considerable 
portion of the produce of his land, and thus pre- 
venting any addition to the arrears already due, 
even if he could not discharge some part of 
them. The gentle Dura now smiled, instead of 
sighing when, her father asked 1 where was the 
good of troubling the brain at all at all about 
what was to come, when the good and the bad 
was hid entirely ; ’ and answered only by a kiss, 
when he inquired for any good that had come 
out of the hitherto grave looks of his £ darlin’ 
o’ the world.’ 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


27 


The rent for the year was made up just in 
time by the sale of only one pig; and Mr. Teale 
was surprised, and looked as if he did not know 
whether or not to be pleased, when the sum was 
forthcoming. He congratulated Sullivan on hav- 
ing got a solvent partner in Blayney’s place, 
and on Dan Mahony having sent his father the 
means of paying his share ; so that Sullivan was 
free from all encumbrance but that for which he 
had given his note of hand. Dora’s heart leaped 
within her, while she listened to the facts, and to 
her father’s fervent blessing on her lover, whose 
heart was evidently still at home, wherever his 
feet might be wandering. She did not know, — 
for her father had actually forgotten to tell her, 
— that the tithe was not yet paid, nor had been 
for two years; the tithe-proctor having accom- 
modated him by taking -his note-of-hand for 
the amount, and for various incidental charges. 
Bitterly did Dora afterwards grieve that she had 
been for awhile spared this additional anxiety. 

The next time she returned from confession, 
it was with a light heart and a tripping step 
approaching to a dance. Father Glenny had 
readily absolved her from the sins of mistrusting 
heaven in regard of her father’s rent, and mis- 


28 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


trusting a holy and solemn oath in regard of 
Dan Mahony, having, in dark hours, been 
tempted to doubt his remembering the Glen of 
the Echoes, and all that was in it ; which was a 
great sin, inasmuch as Dan had vowed a sol- 
emn vow, which heaven would guard, to look 
upon himself as a banished wanderer, till she 
should, face to face, release him from the oath. 
Father Glenny not only gave her absolution, 
and taught her how to keep the tempter at a 
distance next time, by repeating the oath, and 
recalling the circumstances under which it was 
rnad^, but spoke well of Dan, and seemed to 
think the sooner all doubts were laid, by their 
being made man and wife, the better. 

Dora immediately began to obey his direc- 
tions by recalling, during her walk home, the 
minutest circumstances connected with the vow. 
She could just discern, at the highest point of 
the rugged mountain-road, the big stone under 
which they knelt when she was obliged to leave 
him to pursue his way alone : she could mark 
the very spot where she had given him the 
‘ Poesy of prayers,’ and where they had ex- 
changed their crucifixes, and called six very 
choice saints to witness the vow. While gazing 


/ 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


29 


in this direction, shading her eyes from the set- 
ting sun, she perceived men driving two cows 
up this very road, sometimes pulling the poor 
creatures by a noose over the obstructions in 
their way, and sometimes lifting them up as fast 
as they fell. Dora’s lightness of heart was 
gone in a moment. From the circumstance of 
there being several men to take charge of two 
cows, she was convinced that the cattle had 
been distrained from some tenant in the Glen ; 
and she had a misgiving that they might be her 
own father’s. 

When she came within sight of home, # she 
did not know what to make of the appearance 
of things. The cows were not visible ; but they 
were apt to disappear among the ditches, or be- 
hind the cabin. Her father gave tokens of 
merriment; but with rather more activity than 
was natural to him. He was throwing stones 
and bits of turf at the pigs in the ditches, so as 
to make them run hither and thither, and sing- 
ing, to drown their squeaking, in the following 
strain : — 

‘ You’re welcome to the beasts for sale; 

For the devil take me if I go to gaol. 

My wife and they riz a mournful lowing, 


30 IRISH LIABILITIES. 

And they looked jist in my eyes so knowing. 

So now keep away, if you plase, that’s all ; 

And the curse o’ Jasus light on.ye all ! ’ 

This song, as soon as the words were dis- 
tinguishable, told a pretty plain story, and the 
occupation of Dora’s mother told a yet plainer. 
She was breaking up the milk-pails to feed the 
fire ; and, in answer to the girl’s remonstrance, 
demanded what was the use of vexing their 
sight with what would be tempting them to 
thirst, and putting them in mind to curse the 
c scruff of the earth ’ that had robbed them of 
their kine? But could not the cattle be got 
baclc again? — Lord save her! when did she 
ever know Mr. Teale give up any thing he had 
clutched ? Mr. Teale ! he who had just been 
paid ? Even so. He was behind-hand with his 
dues, like the people he scorned beneath his 
feet ; and instead of seizing his car, horses, or 
the luxuries of his house, the man who was 
over him distrained upon the poor tenants, who 
had already paid their rents ; while Teale look- 
ed on, amused to see the Sullivans and others 
compelled to pay rent twice over, while he 
escaped. The people having, in former cases, 
discovered that this monstrous grievance is not 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


31 


known in England, had, for some time, come to 
the conclusion that England is favored by Gov- 
ernment, while there is no justice to be had in 
Ireland; not being aware that the law is the 
same in both countries, and that the exemption 
from this fatal liability which English cultivators 
enjoy, is owing to the rarity of the practice of 
subletting in their island. 

It soon appeared that Teale was disappointed 
in the amount of the levy upon his tenants, 
since the same men returned early in the morn- 
ing to take what else they could get, by virtue 
of the note-of-hand.» The crop, just ready for 
gathering in, was dug up and carted away, a 
small provision only being left for the immediate 
wants of the family. The fowls and pigs dis- 
appeared at the same time ; and to all the hub- 
bub which disturbed the morning hours, the 
deep curses of Sullivan, the angry screams of 
his wife, the cackling of the alarmed poultry, 
the squealing of the pigs, and the creaking of 
the crazy cars, there succeeded a hush, which 
was only interrupted by the whirring of Dora’s 
wheel. She had taken to her spinning, partly 
to conceal her tears, partly to drown thoughts 
which would otherwise have almost distracted 
her. 


32 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


The ominous quiet of the cabin did not last 
long. Sullivan was sitting, so as to block up 
the doorway, with his back against the mud- wall; 
he was chewing a straw, and looking out vacant- 
ly upon his trampled field, when his wife started 
up from her seat beside the fire-place, where the 
pot of cold potatoes was hanging over an extin- 
guished fire. She greeted him with a tremen- 
dous kick. 

‘ Get out o’ that, you cratur ! ’ cried she. 
‘ Pm thinking there’s room and a plenty beyond 
there, let alone the styes with not a soul of a pig 
in them. Get out with ye ! ’ 

‘ Give over, honey, or it will be the worse for 
ye, ’ said Sullivan. ‘ It’s my own place where 
I’m lying entirely, and the prospect beyond is 
not so pleasing to the eye as it was, honey: 
that’s all.’ 

‘The more’s the reason you should be bestir- 
ring yourself, like me, to hide what’s left us in 
the bog.’ 

‘ What do you mean, if your soul is not gone 
astray?’ inquired the husband. 

‘ Work, work ! if you’d save a gun, or a bed, 
or a bottle of spirits from the proctor. Into the 
bog with ’em, if you wouldn’t have him down 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


33 


upon you, hearing, as he will, how little is left 
to pay the tithe. Leave off, I tell you,’ she 
shouted to poor Dora ; 4 whisht, and give over 
with your whirring and whirring, that wearies 
the ears of me. Leave off, or by this and that, 
I’ll make you sorry.’ 

Dora did her . best to understand the evil to 
be apprehended, and to guard against it. She 
roused her father from his posture of affected 
ease, sought out a hiding-place among the 
rushes in a waste tract, where they might stow 
their household goods, and helped to strip the 
dwelling as actively as if they had been abou 
to remove to a better abode. While her father 
and she were laden with the chest which con- 
tained her mother’s bridal provision of bed-lin- 
en, which had thus far been preserved from for- 
feiture, a clapping of hands behind them made 
them turn and observe a sign that enemies were 
at hand. 

4 By the powers, here they come,’ cried her 
father. 4 Work, work, for the bare life, my jew- 
el. In with it, and its back we’d be going with 
as innocent faces as if we’d been gathering 
rushes. Here, pull your lap full.’ 

Dora could not at first tell whether their 
movements had been observed. 

C 


34 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


‘God save you, kindly, Mr. Shehan,’ said 
Sullivan to the proctor. 4 Its just in time you’d 
oe come to see the new way of thatching we 
have got, and these gentlemen to take a lesson, 
may be. Dora, my jewel, throw down the 
rushes and get some more out of hand.’ 

4 One of my gentlemen shall go with her,' 
said Shehan. 4 There are things among the 
rushes sometimes, Sullivan, that fill a house as 
well as thatch it.’ 

Dora invited any of the gentlemen to help 
her, and led the way to a rush bank, in an op- 
posite direction ; but, declining to follow her 
lead, they entered the house, and laughed, 
when they found it completely empty. 

‘ You’re grown mightily afraid of the sky, 
Sullivan,’ observed Shehan, 4 since you’d be af- 
ter mending your thatch, sooner than getting a 
bed to lie on, to say nothing of a bit and sup, 
which I don’t see you have to be boasting of.’ 

All Sullivan’s good reasons why he should 
suddenly mend his thatch with rushes that lay 
4 convaynient ’ went for nothing with the proc- 
tor, who had caught a glimpse of the stratagem. 
The claim for tithes, arrears, and fees was 
urged, certain ominous-looking papers produced, 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


35 


and no money being forthcoming, the goods 

were found and carried off, even down to Do- 

/ 

ra’s wheel, with the flax upon it. The proctor 
gave no heed to the despair of the destitute ten- 
ants, but rather congratulated himself on having 
heard of the former seizures in time to appropri- 
ate what remained. 

Of those whom he had left behind, the fa- 
ther lay down once more in the doorway, de- 
claring himself nigh hand brokenhearted, and 
melancholy entirely ; his wife went about to in- 
terest the neighbors in their wrongs ; and Dora 
kneeled at her prayers in the darkest corner o f 
the cabin. After a time, when the twilight be- 
gan to thicken, her father started up in great 
agitation, and dared somebody outside to come 
in and see what he could find for rent, or tithes, 
or tolls, or tax of any kind.. His creditors 
might come swarming as thick as boys going to 
a fair, but they would find nothing, thanks to 
the proctor : unless they carried him off bodily, 
they might go as they came, and he would try 
whose head was the hardest before it came to 
that. Dora perceived that her father was in too 
great a passion to listen to one who seemed not 
to be a creditor ; and she went to die door to 


36 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


interpose. More quick-sighted than her father, 
she instantly saw, through the dim light, than it 
was Dan ; and not even waiting for the assurance 
of his voice, threw herself on his neck, while he 
almost stifled her with caresses. 

‘ Dan, are you come back true? Just speak 
that word. ’ 

‘True as the saints to the blessed, darling 
of my heart. ’ 

‘Then God is merciful to send you now, for 
we want true friends to raise us up, stricken as 
we are to the bare ground.’ 

‘Bare ground, indeed, ’ cried Dan, entering 
and looking for a resting-place, on which to de- 
posit the sobbing and clinging Dora. ‘ They 
have used you basely, my heart’s life, but trust 
to me to make it up in your own way to each 
of you. You trust me, Dora, don’t you, as the 
priest gave leave?’ 

Dora silently intimated her trust in her lov- 
er’s faith, which it had never entered her head 
to doubt — love having thus far been entirely 
unconnected in her mind with thoughts of the 
world’s gear. She wept on his shoulder, leav- 
ing it to her father to tell the story of their 
troubles, and only looked up when she hwprd 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


37 


her mother’s voice approaching, to ask, with 
great simplicity, what they were to do next? 

4 To be married in the morning, if father 
Glenny was at hand, and consenting, ’ her lov- 
er replied. He had two guineas in his pocket 
for the fees ; and then they would be all on a 
footing, (as he had no more money,) and must 
help one another to justice and prosperity as 
well as they could. Sullivan interposed a few 
prudent objections, but soon gave up when he 
found his little Dora was against him. The 
fact was, that her filial duty, religion, and love, 
all plied her at once in favor of an immediate 
marriage. She had always had a firm faith 
that Dan could achieve any thing he pleased ; a 
faith which was much confirmed by his having 
paid his father’s rent, and saved, moreover, 
enough for his marriage fees. It appeared to 
her that Providence had sent this able helper in 
the time of her parents’ need, and that it was 
not for her to prevent his lifting them out of 
poverty as speedily as might be. 

Dan told them that there was to be a letting 
of land in the neighborhood, the next day; and 
that if he was made sure in time of having Dora 
for his cabin-keeper, he would bid for an acre 


38 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


or two, and did not doubt to do as well in the 
world as his father before him. Of all thi*, 
Dora’s mother, on her return, seemed to have 
no more doubt than the rest of the party; and 
she immediately dismissed all her cares, except 
the regret that she could not walk so far as to 
see her daughter married. Dan was now re- 
quested to name his hour for departure in the 
morning, and to go home to his father, who had 
had but a hasty glimpse of him on his return. 
He busied himself in obtaining some clean dry 
straw and a rush candle for his poverty-stricken 
friends, overwhelmed Dora with caresses, and 
ran home. 

Dora had little imagined, two hours before, 
with what a light heart she should lie, this night, 
on the cold floor of their bare cabin. To have 
Dan to lean upon was every thing. She could 
not admit any further fear for the future. They 
had only to begin the world again, that was 
all ; and with the advantage, too, of Dan’s 
experience and skill in getting money; which it 
did not occur to her, might be of no avail, 
where no money could be got, or where it pass- 
ed immediately into the hands of one tyrannical 
claim an or another. This ease from appre- 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


39 


hension formed the substratum of her happy 
thoughts of this night; and it was her filial piety, 
only, which made the matter of so much impor- 
tance to her. For herself, it was enough that 
Dan was her own. She had not a wish beyond 
what would be bestowed by the priest’s office 
and blessing, which she hoped so soon to have 
obtained. 

Father Glenny, though at first surprised at 
being called on to perform the marriage cere- 
mony so early in the morning, and before so 
few witnesses, and mortified on behalf of the 
young folks, that the customary revelry and 
sanction of numbers must be dispensed with in 
their case, had nothing to say against the pro- 
ceeding. Having ascertained that the friends 
of both parties approved, he went on to exhort 
the young couple to remember that they were 
now in the act of fulfilling a divine command, 
and to trust for the blessing of God on their 
union accordingly. He then performed the 
ceremony and dismissed them ; the bridegroom 
having taken care, as a point of honor, that the 
priest should not lose much in respect of fees, 
the amount being tendered by the parties instead 
of collected from an assemblage of guests 


40 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


Father Glenny did not refuse the offering. He 
was unwilling to wound the feelings of the offer- 
ers : he was not aware of the extent of their 
poverty; and, moreover, considered the fees 
his due, even more than a Protestant clergyman 
would have done in a similar instance, — the 
remuneration of the Catholic clergy in Ireland 
being principally derived from marriage fees. 

The pressure of the times obliged the pro- 
ceedings of the whole party to be more busi- 
ness-like than is at all usual on the day of an 
Irish wedding. The bridegroom stayed but to 
give his Dora into her mother’s arms, and then 
set off, accompanied by Sullivan, for the place 
where two or three lots of ground were to 
be let by auction, or, as the phrase goes, by 
cant. 

They were just in time to take a survey of 
the lots before bidding. There was small choice 
of advantages ; for the preceding tenants, know- 
ing that they need not hope for a renewal, and 
that the mode of letting by cant would, in all 
probability, turn them out of the place, had ex- 
hausted the land to the utmost for the last two 
or three years. This measure not only gave 
them as much as they could obtain for the time, 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


41 


but afforded a chance of getting the lot back 
again on cheaper terms. The excessive compe- 
tition which is usual on such occasions, however, 
made this last hope a very doubtful one. The 
only thing that was certain beforehand was, that 
the affair would prove a very bad bargain to all 
parties: — to the landlord, because his land was 
nearly ruined, and little rent would, therefore, 
be paid, however much was promised ; to the 
successful bidder, because he would be unable 
to fulfil his absurd promises about the rent, and 
be therefore liable to driving, distraint, or eject- 
ment; and to the unsuccessful bidders, because 
they had come a great way, full of hopes and 
visions of being able to settle on the land, and 
must return destitute as they came, and disap- 
pointed. 

A crowd surrounded the man of power, as 
soon as he appeared on the ground. Many an 
offering had he had that morning of dutiful ser- 
vice, of overstrained civility, or of something 
more substantial, from those who could afford it, 
with the hope of inclining him to favor their par- 
ticular bid. The most diversified claims to a 
preference were whispered into his ear, or ex- 
hibited before his eyes, wherever he went. One 


42 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


had picked up the landlord’s heir, when thrown 
by his pony into a bog in childhood ; another 
had had the honor of lodging the agent, one 
stormy night, among the mountains. One limp- 
ed ostentatiously before Mr. Flanagan, to remind 
him that the lameness happened from one of the 
landlord’s fences having fallen upon him, while 
dozing beneath its shelter ; another, a feeble old 
man, pleaded a yet unfulfilled promise of a Mr. 
Tracey who had been in his grave nearly thirty 
years. 

Mr. Flanagan took no further notice of all this 
than to bid the people get out of his way. From 
many a clutch did he disengage his skirts; on 
many a petition, savoured with a scent of po- 
theen, did he turn his back ; many a venerable 
blue top-coat, and gray cloak, did he elbow 
from his side, before he could proceed to busi- 
ness. When once begun, it required an eye as 
practised, and an ear as inured, as his, to distin- 
guish that any business was proceeding, amidst 
the hubbub of voices, the shoving, jostling, and 
scrambling, which took place while the bidding 
went on. The confusion fairly baffled some 
lookers on, who stopped their horses on the out- 
skirts of the crowd to observe the scene. Mr. 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


43 


Alexander Rosso, just from college, his brother 
Henry, and a foreign gentleman, a college friend 
of the former, were taking their morning ride, 
surrounded by their dogs, when it occurred to 
Alexander, that this was the occasion on which 
to exhibit to his friend the resemblance between 
the Irish and his countrymen. He was scarcely 
aware that the occasion on which the people were 
assembled was similar to that which often collects 
the Italian peasantry in groups, to coi.tend with 
equal vehemence for slips of land, which they 
hold on the same terms. The Irish cottier is of 
the same class with the metayer of Italy ; and 
middlemen are, with few exceptions, alike all 
the world over : they are what it is natural to 
expect men to be under circumstances of strong 
temptation to oppression. and of absolute impunity. 

The Italian gentleman, after gazing with fixed 
attention, and an amused expression of counte- 
nance, for some minutes, used an expressive ges- 
ture, to intimate that he could make nothing of it. 

4 The first lot is disposed of, Henry, is it 
not ? * asked Alexander. 4 That half-naked, 
capering fellow bid highest, I think.’ 

4 Yes,’ replied Henry; 4 and he looks as if 
he had just had the mines of Peru given him.’ 


44 


RISH LIABILITIES. 


‘ He ! ’ exclaimed the foreigner, in astonish- 
ment. 1 And how will he pay ?’ 

‘ No one will pay all, ’ replied Henry, laugh- 
ing. ‘ The agent can only weigh probabilties ; 
and if he happens to know that that poor fellow 
has a little coin hidden somewhere, to help him 
on for a year or two, he will stop at his bidding 
as the highest.’ 

1 But why stop ? Is it not the people’s part 
to stop ? ’ 

‘ We might wait long enough for that, ’ re- 
plied Alexander. 4 They will bid against each 
other till midnight. They will offer a hundred 
per annum per acre rather than lose their chance 
of getting the land. Our people are very rich 
in promises.’ 

‘ And how much has the ragged man pro- 
mised ? ’ 

4 Flanagan ! ’ shouted Henry, above the din, 
which sank to silence in a moment, ‘ how much 
has your first lot brought you ? ’ 

‘ Nine pounds per acre, sir, and yonder 
stands the tenant. ’ 

The successful bidder, came forward, smiling 
and scraping, not a whit ashamed of the bare 
knees which had burst through what had once 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


4 ft 


been breeches, or of the tatters which were 
bound about his person, in various directions, by 
hay-ropes, there being no other way of keeping 
them together. 

‘ Ask him, * urged the eager foreigner, ‘ ask 
him where his pounds are to come from, and 
why he wishes to be a farmer.’ 

‘ There is most likely a lady in the case,’ 
observed Henry ; and then turning to the man, 
he inquired whether he had not done a very 
daring thing in engaging to pay so high a year- 
ly sum? 

‘ God save your honor kindly, the mother is 
turned out of her own, beyond there; and its a 
cabin I’m wishing to give her, old creature as 
she is, and a bite and sup with me.’ 

‘And is there nobody else, friend, likely to 
be your cabin-keeper ? ’ 

The man’s countenance fell, and he replied 
that there was to have been one last Shrovetide, 
but that she was forcibly carried off, and mar- 
ried to another man, before he could overtake 
her. Henry turned the subject hastily, shock- 
ed at his own curiosity, which had led to such a 
disclosure. He asked the man whether he 
could honestly say that he had a week’s provi- 


46 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


sion beforehand for his mother and himself? 
The tenant laughed and pointed to his new 
ground, saying that they might glean potatoes 
enough among the ridges, after the digging, to 
keep them for a few days till they could look 
about them a bit. His mother nmreover had 
a cow, and a slip of a pig. He ended by be- 
witchingly asking for the ‘ blissen ’ on his en- 
terprise. The foreigner was amused to observe 
that in Ireland a blessing comes out of the pock- 
et instead of the mouth ; not that the verbal 
blessing is absolutely worthless; but it is con- 
sidered" merely as an accessory to something 
more substantial. 

The process of giving the blessing quickened 
the bidding, as it was feared the gentlemen 
might leave the ground before the next suc- 
cessful candidate was ready to pay his smiling 
service. The lot was awarded to Dan, who, 
after tossing up his hat, advanced towards the 
horsemen, followed by his father-in-law. They 
observed to one another that he looked better 
qualified than his predecessor to pay rent, his 
dress being decent, and his manner betoken- 
ing more forethought and experience. 

‘ Have you an old mother to find a shelter 
for, too ? ’ inquired Alexander. 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


47 


c There’s the mother and the father too that’s 
jo the fore,’ replied Dan, turning to introduce 
Sullivan. 

‘ And the darling too that’s been his wife al- 
most since the sun rose,’ added Sullivan. ‘Dan 
has had the priest’s blessing this morn, and sure 
your honors’ won’t be long in following?’ 

‘ I would have married in the evening, Dan, 
if I had been you,’ said Henry. ‘The land 
first, and then the girl, is the prudent way, you 
know. How would you have managed, if you 
had had the girl without the land ? ’ 

Dan could not pretend to guess what Provi- 
dence’s other way of providing for him and Do- 
ra would have been ; the actual case was as 
much as any man had to do with. This reason- 
ing put him in the actual case of receiving a 
large blessing from the foreigner, who then rode 
off with his companions, notwithstanding the ve 
hement prayers of the crowd that they would 
stay till the third and last lot was disposed of. 
They had neither time nor further blessing to 
spare this day. They did not, however, escape 
by turning their backs. The third new ten- 
ant was posted in the middle of their road home- 
wards, and on their approach, extended his 


48 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


arms, as if to embrace the three horses with 
their riders, praying for an infinity of blessings on 
their merciful and tender and bountiful hearts, 
and expressing his expectation that he should 
begin the world with a trifle from their honors, 
like Pat and Dan. 

4 See what you have done, Henry, ’ said his 
brother. ‘We shall be expected to pay tribute, 
henceforward, to every new tenant, as often as 
a cant takes place within twenty miles.’ 

Henry set himself seriously to explain that 
their bounty of this day was purely accidental, 
and that none of the party meant to give again 
on a similar occasion. He would not dismiss 
the present applicant without a gift, since his 
companions had had one ; but he gave him less 
than the others, in order to enforce what he had 
said. The man followed for some way, keeping 
close in their rear in hope of their relenting, 
and then retired to the road side, grumbling as 
if defrauded of a right. 

4 It is the most difficult thing in the world,’ 
observed Henry, ‘to deal with these people; 
they have such strange notions of right. Every 
favor is immediately considered as a precedent 
to be forever acted upon : every change in oui 


IRISH LIABILITIES. 


49 


methods of doing kindness is looked upon as 
caprice, and every suspension of a gratuity as 
an injury.’ 

‘ The same is the case in all regions,’ observ- 
ed the foreigner, 4 where the people have other 
dependence than on themselves. If it is re- 
markable in Ireland and in Italy, it is because 
the people of these unhappy countries have 
been long educated by political injuiy to servile 
dependence. It is for you to rectify their no- 
tions of right.’ 

‘ How must we do so ? ’ 

‘You must make their little possessions se- 
cure, and also fortify their labors with the mor- 
al certainty of a due reward. While this is be- 
ing done, — and it will be long in the doing, — • 
you must vary your modes of charity perpet- 
ually, in testimony of its being optional : and O, 
above all things, save your poor from the blight 
of a legal charity ! Save them from the delu- 
sion that they have a right, which, among a 
reckless people, would presently absorb all oth- 
er rights, making cottiers of your middlemen, 
and beggars of your landlords, and converting 
this fertile region into a wilderness, which shal 1 
but echo the wild cry of famine.’ 

D 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


60 


CHAPTER HI. 

IRISH ADVENTURE. 

The accidental bounty of the Mr. Rossos 
enabled Dan to furnish himself with the few 
tools he needed to begin his tillage, and his wife 
with a wheel and a small stock of flax. As for 
clothes, they were obliged to wear, day and 
night, those they had on, having neither a change 
for the day, nor a bed which might supersede 
the use of them at night. This was thought no 
great hardship by any of the family, for it was 
a very common one. Many of their neighbors 
never attempted to undress after their garments 
had passed a certain point of wear. The most 
tidy, who really did patch their clothes very pa- 
tiently while the patches would hold together, 
were for the most part content, after that time, 
to tie them on till they dropped away in frag- 
ments. Their reason for not undressing was 
one which their reproving superiors could not 
gainsay ; — that, once off, no power on earth 
could get the garments on again. This was 
nearly the condition now of Sullivan’s clothing 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


51 


and that of his wife; but they could scarcely 
trouble themselves to think of such a trifle in 
the midst of the affairs they were undertaking;. 
New life and spirit had been given them by the 
timely support yielded by their connexion with 
Dan; and they all, under his direction, gave 
full play to the spirit of enterprise which ever 
distinguishes the Irish when in prospect of an 
equitable recompense of their exertions. Sulli- 
van might now be seen toiling as a laborer 
under his son-in-law, thatching the cabin-roof 
(now in earnest) with rushes from the sand- 
banks, or bringing sand from the beach to work 
into the boggy soil of the potato-field, or cutting 
turf for fuel, or even carrying loads of it on his 
back for sale. The first money thus gained 
went to hire a pack-horse from one of Mr. Ros- 
so’s tenants, for the carrying out a further sup- 
ply of turf ; and this answered so well, that Dan 
finished by selling their own store, and making 
fuel for home consumption, after the manner of 
the Irish peasantry, when the turf in the neigh- 
borhood is exhausted ; that is, by scraping up 
what is left in the state of mire, and baking and 
shaping it with the hand till it becomes dry 
enough to be combustible. Their food was but 


52 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


poor as to quantity and quality, till Dan thought 
himself justified in adding a quarter of a cow to 
his establishment; from which time, potatoes 
and milk, milk and potatoes, were thought as 
good a provision as they had a right to look 
for. 

When that which is usually the idle season 
came round, namely, the weeks which succeed 
the potato-sowing, when nothing more is to be 
done to the crop, Dan proposed a grand scheme 
to his father-in-law, — nothing less than to enlarge 
their cabin by adding a room at the end. Sul- 
livan smacked his lips, and stretched himself, 
somewhat mortified to have his expected period 
of rest broken in upon by new toils : but, re- 
membering that the summer nights were, indeed, 
somewhat oppressive to four people sleeping 
within a space of twelve feet by eight, with no 
air-hole but the door; and looking forward, 
moreover, to the inconveniences of Dora’s con- 
finement in such a place, he gave a groaning 
assent to the undertaking, and went through his 
part of it with a tolerable grace. He cursed, 
for his own sake, however proud for his daugh- 
ter’s, the grand notions which Dan seemed to 
have about a cabin, making the new apartment 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


53 


half as long again as the old one, and leaving 
space in the mud wall for a window. When 
finished, however, all was right in his eyes, and 
he did not sigh, as did the young folks, for yet 
more comforts; if indeed, they were not rather 
necessaries. Dora wished for a bed for her 
mother, who was growing more and more weak- 
ly, and got little rest on her bundle of straw. 
Dan wished for the same comfort for Dora, but 
was obliged at present to content himself with 
looking forward to the time when they might 
increase their stock of fowls, and obtain feathers 
enough from them, to sew up in a sack, and 
make a bed of. He had a little money by him, 
and was often tempted to spend it in Dora’s be- 
half ; but they both agreed that the first neces- 
sity was, to keep out of the clutches of the agent 
and the tithe proctor. Of paying the whole 
rent, there was but little chance ; but as they 
had no partners, and as nobody near was likely 
to pay better than themselves, they hoped to 
satisfy the agent with such a proportion as might 
fairly average what he was in the habit of receiv- 
ing in lieu of the nominal rent. On the whole, 
they considered themselves going on ‘ lair and 
easy, and prosperous entirely.’ 


54 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


They had been nearly a year in their abode, 
the rent-day was corning round, and many 
jokes were continually suggested by that fruitful 
topic, when Father Glenny looked in upon 
them, in the course of his customary circuit 
among his people. Dora came curtseying to 
the door to invite him to repose himself on the 
turf seat within ; her mother rose feebly to pay 
her reverence as he entered, and hoped he 
would be pleased to remain till her husband and 
Dan returned ; the one being at work some way 
off, and the other having business to settle with 
the agent. The priest, who looked remarkably 
grave, assured her he was in no hurry, and ex- 
amined their countenances as if to discover 
whether they had any thing particular to com- 
municate. As they waited, ‘ mannerly ’ for 
him to introduce his own topics, he began by re- 
marking on the improvements in the place, and 
inquiring into the worldly condition of its in- 
habitants. His countenance brightened as he 
listened to their cheerful reports of their pros- 
pects, but he still seemed uneasy till he had put 
one question. Had Dan taken care to secure 
the lease ? he asked ; adding that this was a 
point on which many tenants were unaccount- 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


55 


ably and disastrously careless. They would 
put off signing and securing for months, if 
not years, after taking possession, and many 
were the cases in which he had known them 
rue their procrastination. Dora replied with a 
smile, that she hoped she might, by this time, 
say that the lease was in her husband’s pocket ; 
it had been drawn up, almost ever since they 
settled in this place, but, for some reason or an- 
other, never signed till now, such being her 
husband’s business with the agent this morning 
and also to pay the first year’s rent. At this 
moment, Sullivan burst in, exclaiming, ‘ Lord 
save us ! your reverence, what can have fallen 
out now ? Here’s Dan coming up the glen, 
raving like mad, and my own eyes seen him 
hold up his fist at the agent ; and they, as quiet 
as lambs together till now.’ 

Dora was flying out to meet her husband, 
when the priest laid his hand on her arm. 

‘ Stop, my daughter, and listen to me,’ he 
said. ‘ I know it all. For your husband’s sake 
hear it from me, that you may not add to his 
passion. Remember your vow of trust, daugh- 
ter, and renew it now, in your time of need.’ 

Dora sat down trembling, beseeching, by her 


56 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


looks, that she might hear the truth at once. 
Father Glenny related that Mr. Tracey had 
written to his agent to say, that it was evident to 
him that his property had been much injured, 
and the condition of his tenantry no less so, by 
the subdivision of land having been encouraged 
to too great an extent: that it was his pleasure 
that the reverse process of consolidation should 
immediately begin; and that for this purpose, no 
new leases of small portions of land should be 
given, and no partnership tenancies allowed 
henceforward : his intention being, that instead 
of a small plot of ground supporting many hold- 
ers, one substantial holder should unite several 
small plots of ground into a respectably-sized 
farm. The zealous agent, Father Glenny went 
on to say, had looked round liim to see how 
many tenants he could eject, and had put Dan 
and his family down in his list ; the unfortunate 
delay in signing the lease having put their 
little possession into his power. When Dora 
had made sure that this was all, she turned to 
her father who was standing against the wall, 
tattooing with his brogues upon the threshold. 
She might have thought that he did not hear 
the news, but that he was humming m an under 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


57 


voice the tune to which he had sung, on a some- 
what similar occasion, the burden — 

1 The curse o’ Jasus light on ye all ! ’ 

His old wife not daring to give vent to her anger 
in the presence of the priest, had hooded her 
head with her petticoat tail, and ceased her spin- 
ning. Father Glenny was beginning a strain of 
consolation when Sullivan cried, 

4 O murther, Dora, my darling, what a sight 
it is to see Dan raging like the sea itself! King 
of Glory! he is mad entirely. * 

The priest placed himself by the threshold, 
so as to be the first to meet the unhappy man. 
At the sight of the black coat, the oaths and 
threats were silenced; and presently the knit 
brow relaxed, the fierce eye was tamed before 
Father Glenny’s mild, serious gaze. Before 
; any words were exchanged, Dora drew her 
1 husband in with a smile, and asked him how 
they were worse off now than on their wedding 
morning, and where w*as the wonder of young 
and poor people like themselves having to go 
forth again to seek a home ? She did not doubt 
they should again find one, and have a warm 
corner moreover for her father when he should 
be nast his work. 


58 IRISH ADVENTURE. 

Her husband impatiently stopped her, saying 
that there were no more homes to be had for 
poor tenants, and that if she wanted a warm 
corner, she must seek it among the beggars 
haunts in the towns, — warm enough, with seven 
families in a cellar ; a comfortable place truly, 
for her babe to be born in, and her parents to 
end their days in : and disregarding the priest’s 
presence, he prayed for confusion on every 
mother’s son of the Traceys from the first that 
had gone before, to the last that should come 
after. This brought F ather Glenny to interpose. 

‘ Peace, my son ! ’ he said. c It is blasphemy 
to curse man for the judgments of heaven.’ 

He was going on, but Dan interrupted him to 
say that he was not thinking of heaven at all in 
the matter. What he cursed was the clearing 
of the estate, and the cruelty of those who would 
turn so many out of house and home — Father 
Glenny still insisted that this was heaven’s work, 
since the Traceys were no Protestants, no 
strangers in the land, but members of the true 
church, ancient possessors of the soil, only kept 
at a distance by being deprived of their political 
rights, and as anxious as gentry should be, for 
the prosperity of their people. He mentioned 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


59 


that Mr. Tracey, while giving the fatal order, 
had mentioned the good of the tenantry as one 
of the motives thereto. It was clear to him that 
good woukl arise out of this measure, since pov- 
erty had increased in proportion to the subdivi- 
sion of the land ; and the distress which must 
prevail in the meantime, should be patiently 
borne as the judgment of heaven on the sins of 
the poor, and on the slowness of the rich to 
divide their substance with the needy. — Dora, 
who was accustomed to receive with reverence 
whatever her priest let fall, inquired humbly 
whether he would have them go and ask assist- 
ance from Mr. Rosso, he being the only person 
in their neighborhood who had substance to di- 
vide with the needy. Father Glenny shook his 
head, sighed, and advised them to remain where 
they were, till he should have considered their 
case and that of some of their neighbors, who 
were suffering under similar calamity. On in- 
quiring whether they had any savings, Dora joy- 
fully mentioned the rent, naturally supposing that 
Dan would not part with it when he found how 
matters stood ; but her countenance fell when 
she extracted from her now moody husband the 
fact that the agent had received him with a smil- 


60 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


ing countenance, requested him to count down 
the money while he prepared his pen and ink, 
signed to his assistant to sweep off the gold, sil- 
ver, and copper into a drawer and turfi the key, 
and then, and not before, explained the necessity 
he was under, of refusing to fulfil his engage' 
ment, scoring the lease from corner to corner 
with his newly-mended pen as he spoke, and 
bidding the insulted Dan move aside to make 
way for his betters, who were fortunate enough 
not to have put off signing and sealing. 

‘Then we have nothing left,’ said Dora 
calmly. 

4 Murther ! ’ cried her father, ‘ and we might 
have had an elegant bed to have carried away 
on the shoulders of us, instead of a coat that has 
nothing left but the sleeves, by reason of their 
having never been used. And much besides is 
it we might have had if you had let us be com- 
fortable, Dan, and leave the rent to take care of 
itself in peace. By dad, we may very well pass 
for beggars without any pretending.’ 

His son-in-law looked fiercely at him, and the 
priest interposed to show that it was all right. 
All were to have their dues, and Mr. Tracey 
should, therefore, receive his rent; for paying 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


61 


which honestly, Dan might fully trust he should 
never suffer. After more words of exhortation 
and comfort, the priest gave Dora a small pres- 
ent of money, and expressed his hope of seeing 
them all at mass in the morning, after which he 
would converse further with them on their affairs. 

Dan stood watching him from the door, after 
receiving his blessing with a dubious expression 
of countenance. Dora had sunk down at her 
mother’s feet, hiding her face in her lap, when 
she heard her husband say, 1 Praise to the pow 
ers, he ’s out of sight 1 Up with you, you women, 
and all ready for nightfall.’ 

To the question of all three, what he meant 
to do ? Dan replied, by giving orders, in a tone 
which none dared disobey. He made Sullivan 
take a spade and dig up, with all his might, po- 
tatoes which were not yet fit for cropping. Dora 
found up sacks and turf-panniers, and Dan pro- 
ceeded, as soon as twilight came on, to impress 
into his temporary service a horse which grazed 
in the neighborhood. On this animal he pack- 
ed the panniers, so as to afford a seat between 
them, and then commanded the trembling Dora 
to mount by his assistance. She clasped her 
hands, crying, 


62 


TRISH ADVENTURE. 


4 0, Dan ! where will you be for taking us in 
the dark night ? You are over full of haste, i m 
thinking, Dan.’ 

His only reply was to lift her upon the horse. 

‘My mother!’ cried Dora, weeping. ‘You 
will not leave her alone ; and if my father stays 
without us, depend on it he will call in the neigh- 
bors.’ 

Dan lifted her down again, went for the old 
woman (who had seemed stupified ever since 
the news came), placed her between the pan- 
niers, gruffly desired Dora to remain behind till 
her turn came, and began to lead the horse up 
the hill which stretched towards the seashore. 
Dora followed, however, at some distance, de- 
termined to see whither her mother was to be 
conducted. The horse was a gray one, which 
enabled her to keep within sight, and out of 
hearing, amidst the increasing darkness. It was 
a dreary walk, over four or five miles of boggy 
ground ; and many times would she have called 
cut for her husband’s help, if she had not feared 
his present mood more than the stormy sky 
above and the treacherous soil beneath. Gusts 
of wind blew from the sea, piercing her with 
cold through her scanty raiment. Drenching 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


63 


showers were dashed in her face, blinding her 
so effectually lor many minutes together, that 
she would have lost the track and have sunk yet 
deeper than she did in the bog, if the same cause 
nad not obliged those whom she followed to stop 
also, and turn their backs for awhile to the storm. 
The fitful gale brought to her the feeble wailings 
of the old woman, and the growlings of her 
impatient husband, who cursed heaven, earth, 
and hell, at every impediment to their progress. 
During one of their pauses on a ridge, over 
which the roaring of the sea rose more distinctly 
to their ears, Dora came closer upon them than 
she intended. The horse started, and his snort 
seemed to be answered from a distance by a 
cry. The old woman saw something waving 
near her, and screamed, and Dan himself shook 
with superstitious terror at the very moment that 
he swore another oath at those who were scared 
when the echoes were up and awake on a stormy 
night. 

‘ The echoes are up and awake,’ said Dora, 
venturing round to her husband’s side. 4 Take 
care, Dan, that they repeat nothing you would 
not have heaven hear.’ 

As she expected, his anger was now turned 


r>4 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


on her, for risking her own life and her child’s 
by so perilous a walk. She made no reply, but 
held by his arm till they arrived at their desti- 
nation, thankful that he had slackened his pace 
and moderated his wrath somewhat, as if in con- 
sideration for her. They stopped on the ex- 
treme verge of the cliff when Dan desired his 
wife to hold the horse while he carried her 
mother home. She was not left for many min- 
utes to conjecture what this home could be. 
Her husband led her down to a doorless and 
half-unroofed cabin, placed just so far below the 
verge of the cliff as to be unseen from the land. 
Having lodged both the women under shelter, 
Dan tried to strike a light with a flint and steel 
he had brought with him ; but as fast as the lit- 
tle rush candle was lit, it blew out again, there 
being no corner of the hovel free from draughts. 
There was nothing for it but to abide in wet, 
cold, and darkness, till dawn. The horse being 
unloaded, Dan mounted, dnd bidding the women 
expect Sullivan and himself before morning, set 
off again across the bog. Three hours after- 
wards they appeared with another horse, and a 
heavier load; and, to Dora’s disappointment, 
her husband again left her, not saying this time 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


65 


when he should return. Sullivan expressed his 
belief that Dan’s purpose was to spoil the place 
as much as possible before morning, and then 
to hide himself for a time in some such conveni- 
ent sort of place as he hinted he had thoughts 
of betaking himself to the next day. No inqui- 
ries could get out of him what sort of place that 
was. 

Dora spent the rest of the night in mounting 
from the hut to the cliff, and descending from 
the cliff to the hut, trying to comfort her mother 
meanwhile, who lay moaning and peevishly com- 
plaining of manifold evils that it was impossible 
to remedy. Towards morning, it startled Dora 
on her watch to perceive a bright light burning 
in the direction of their late abode. She called 
Sullivan to look at it, who forthwith began to 
wave his hat, crying, 

1 Hilloo, hilloo ! Dan is the boy in the world 
to deal with Flanagan. Hilloo ! Dan, my 
darling, you’ve finished the job out of hand! 
’T will be as good as a year’s rent to see the 
agent overlook the place, let alone the tenant. 
It’s burning — the cabin is, my jewel, and the 
turf-stack beside it ; and it warms my heart at 
this distance ! ’ 

E 


66 IRISH ADVENTURE. 

4 And Dan — where is Dan, father ? \ 

4 O, the cratur, he’d just stop up the drain 
and cut the pig’s throat, and throw him into the 
bog, and see that every thing that he eouldn’t 
bring with him is put in the way of the fire ; 
and then he would set it alight, and creep off 
some roundabout way to us here.’ 

This was exactly what took place: and the 
device was so much to the taste of most of the 
ejected tenants, that the example was followed 
to a great extent before a sufficient force could 
be summoned to check this destruction of pro- 
perty. For the next three nights, fires were 
visible here and there in the dark and dreary 
glen. As fast as the agent and his body-guard 
galloped from one point of watch to another, a 
blaze arose in their rear; and as soon as they 
arrived at the scene of destruction, the perpetra- 
tors had vanished, and it was too late to do any 
good. A mocking laugh came, from time to 
time, out of the darkness which surrounded the 
horsemen, in the intervals of the conflagration ; 
but this always happened on spots where the 
ground on either side the road was not of a kind 
to be attempted on horseback. In the morning, 
slain pigs, not in condition to be made food of. 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


67 


were found scattered on the road; houghed 
horses lay groaning about the fields ; and many 
a poor cow was burned in its shed. The agent 
was driven half frantic by these insults and in- 
juries. He sent messenger after messenger for 
soldiers, called on Mr. Rosso, his sons, and ten- 
ants for assistance $ and besides taking these 
necessary measures of defence, pointed out every 
cottier already ejected, or about to be so, as a 
criminal; exasperated every man lie met by his 
insults; and rode against the women and over- 
threw the children as often aS he passed a party 
of homeless wanderers, going they cared not 
whither, and to be kept alive they knew not 
how. It appeared sb clear to the young Rossos 
that Flanagan was endangering his own life, and 
aggravating the evils of the time, by awakening 
the revengeful passions of the people, that one 
or other of them kept continually beside him, in 
order, by their presence, to impose a restraint 
upon him, and, by their mediation, to soothe the 
wounds he inflicted. They well knew that, by 
thus associating themselves with so obnoxious a 
person, they ran the risk of being hated by the 
people ; but this risk they had courage to brave 
for a time in a good cause. 


08 IRISH ADVENTURE. 

Alexander had taken his turn one day, when 
he rode up to join his father and brother, who 
had compassed a circuit of observation in a dif- 
ferent direction, and were now returning home 
to refresh themselves before beginning their 
evening watch. 

‘ Father , 5 said Alexander, 4 do you mean to 
forbid your tenants to receive any of these 
ejected cottagers ? 5 

‘Certainly not: it is no affair of mine . 5 

‘ So I thought ; but Flanagan has not only 
been routing out some poor creatures from a 
barn of one of Tracey’s tenants, but has taken 
upon him to declare that they must remove 
themselves out of the district, as they would be 
harbored neither by you nor any of the proprie- 
tors in it . 5 

‘ What business has the fellow to answer for 
any body but himself ? 5 said Mr. Rosso. c How- 
ever, the poor people know more of the matter 
than he does. They know that I am harboring 
many, — as many, alas ! as I can afford to re- 
lieve. Would this were all over, boys ! Every 
case I hear of seems a harder one than the last ; 
and it breaks one’s heart to leave them to take 
their chance. See from this very point, what 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


69 


melancholy groups of them : — aged parents, or 
helpless children, or weakly women in each, to 
be a burden upon the spirit-broken cottager 1 ’ 

( Where will they go? What will become 
of them, father ? * 

‘ The greater part will crowd into the towns, 
and herd by hundreds under the same roof, till 
the fever sweeps half of them away. Others 
will stroll the country as beggars; and others 
will live by plunder. The most fortunate of 
them will be those who will beg enough in 
crossing the island to pay their way over the sea 
in search of English wages. The noblest in 
their natures, the brave and high-spirited, will 
become White-boys, and die amidst acts of out- 
rage, or on the gibbet. So much for that policy 
of landlords, by which they first increase the 
numbers of their tenantry, in order, by force of 
competition, to let their land high ; and then, 
finding that they have gone too far, take a fit 
of consolidation, and make no provision for the 
crowd they called up around them, and now 
deprive of the means of subsistence. What 
think you of such policy, Henry ? ’ 

* I was just thinking, sir, that it is rather sur- 
prising to me that you lift up your voice, on all 


7*0 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


occasions, against establishing poor-laws in Ire* 
land, while you have such scenes as these before 
your eyes.’ 

‘ While that question is pending, sir, ’ said 
Alexander, — ‘ and it is a question which will 
not be speedily settled, and which, if settled in 
the affirmative, will bring tedious arrangements 
after it, — —in the meanwhile, is not Tracey bound, 
by every merciful consideration, to give his 
ejected tenants dwellings elsewhere ? Ought not 
each one of them now to have a slip of land on 
yonder mountain-side, and wherewith to build 
himself a cabin ? * 

‘ That would afford no present relief,’ ob- 
served Henry. ‘ Besides having to build their 
cabins, the people must drain and manure their 
ground by a process of many months, before it 
will yield them the food they are this day in 
want of.’ 

‘ Even supposing these new lots to be pre- 
pared before the ejectment was served,’ said 
Mr. Rosso, c the plan would be a bad one. It 
would secure a future repetition of precisely the 
same evils we are deploring to-day. Bad culti- 
vation and over-population, through the too ex- 
tensive subdivision of land, are our grievances; 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 71 

and to remedy them, Alexander, you would 
begin afresh to divide and subdivide, and en- 
courage the increase of numbers as before. 
This seems to me scarcely reasonable.’ 

‘ But the poor-laws we were talking of, sir,’ 
interrupted Henry ; ‘ do tell me how you can re- 
sist pleading for them. Tell me, if . you please, 
that these poor people have been idle and 
improvident — tell me that they have brought 
families into the world without a prospect of 
maintaining them ; but tell me whether such 
destitution as theirs is not a dreadful punishment 
for what are, after all, more faults than crimes. 
Look, too, at the number of innocent persons 
that suffer: the old, who lie down to die by the 
wayside after a life of toil ; the infants, who ex- 
pire of hunger on their mothers’ breasts; the 
sickly, who, instead of being tended by careful 
hands, are shrinking and shivering in the wet 
and cold ; — look at these wretches, in contrast 
with Tracey, living in luxpry abroad, on funds 
wrung from the misery of his tenantry. . . .’ 

‘Tracey is a benevolent man,’ interrupted 
Alexander ; ‘ he may be mistaken in the way in 
which he sets about improving the condition of 
his tenantry, and he may have chosen his agent 


72 IRISH ADVENTURE. 

badly ; but he is far from being a hard-hearted 
man/ 

‘ True,’ replied Henry, ‘ and all this makes 
for my argument. Levy a rate upon him, and 
he will no longer be insensible to what passes at 
home; the burden of relieving distress will no 
longer fall wholly upon the charitable, — upon 
| you, father, and your kind-hearted tenants, who 
are giving up their barns for lodging, and rood 
after rood of their potato-grounds, for food for 
the destitute. O, father, when I see these 
things, — the calamity of the oppressed, the 
insensibility of the oppressor, the liabilities of 
the charitable, the exemption of the selfish and 
the avaricious, I cannot but cry out for the 
interposition of the strong arm of the law to rec- 
tify these monstrous abuses, by making charity 
compulsory/ 

‘ If the law could rectify these abuses, Henry, 
I would cry out with as loud a voice as you. 
It is because I am convinced that a legal charity 
would only aggravate them, that I advocate 
other methods of rectification. We all know 
that a permanent state of comfort depends on 
character. Do we not? ’ 

‘ Certainly : we might give and give forever 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


73 


to a set of depraved paupers, without any better 
result than impoverishing ourselves.’ 

‘True. Well; the mistake seems to me to 
lie in supposing that, as character and comfort 
are connected, we must* produce character by 
giving comfort ; whereas this is beginning at the 
wrong end; and the results have always been 
the direct reverse of what was expected. We 
must begin at the other end. . . .’ 

‘ But, my dear father, how long it must be 
before education can work. . . . ’ 

4 Remember, Henry, there is another kind of 
education always going forwards, besides that 
of our reading and writing schools — the educa 
tion of circumstances. By our present institu- 
tions, we educate our peasantry to indolence and 
improvidence ; and by calling in poor-laws we 
should only be appointing an additional teacher 
to enforce the same bad lessons. Instead of 
this, I would fain have institutions which should 
stimulate, instead of superseding industry, — 
which should cherish, instead of extinguishing 
true charity, — and ensure its due reward to pru- 
dence, instead of offering a premium to improvi- 
dence.’ 

I know the evils you speak of have grown 


74 IRISH ADVENTURE. 

out of the English pauper system ; but must 
they, therefore, be inherent in every system of 
legal charity ? * 

c They must ; because the supposition of a 
right to assistance is involved in the very notion 
of a legal provision ; and herein lies the mischief. 
You will never improve character (which is the 
same as improving the external condition), while 
you separate character and its consequences, — 
while a right to support is accorded to any man, 
whether his conduct be wise or foolish, correct 
or profligate. Lay hold of a child, teach him 
effectually that industry and prudence are the 
means of comfort, and you put comfort within 
his reach. Take the profligate, or the reckless 
man, in his middle age, give him the means of 
comfort, and you will not give him character ; 
he will presently be as poor as ever, and the 
more reckless for having received arbitrary as- 
sistance.'* 

* The more arbitrary charity there is, the less 
natural will there be,’ said Alexander.. ‘In** 
England, our peasantry are held in respect for 
their filial duty and neighborly kindness ; — too 
little known there, alas ! except in the remote 
districts where the poor-law; have not yet shed 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 75 

their blight over the growth of kindly sympa- 
thies. Give us poor-laws, and here, too, the 
aged will be committed to the cold care of stran- 
gers, orphans will be without a home, and the 
maladies of the body will involve the soul-sick- 
ness of pauperism.’ 

‘Such is the fate of the helpless in England,’ 
said Mr. Rosso; ‘and their calamities are aggra- 
vated in precise proportion to the amount of le- 
gal relief provided. The most deplorable mis- 
ery prevails in the southern counties, where the 
poor-rate is highest: the condition of the poor 
improves to the northward, where a dislike of 
this species of relief has been longer kept alive. 

There is still less distress in Scotland, where 
assessments for the poor are rare; and least of all 
where their condition is confided to voluntary 
charity. That the misery is as much the con- 
sequence as the cause of legal relief, is proved 
by the result of an experiment of abolishing a 
stated mode of relief. Pauperism was on the 
perpetual increase in a populous district under 
a system of assessment ; the assessment was 
discontinued, and pauperism vanished. It was 
swept away by the current of human affections, 
as soon as they were restored to their natural 
channels.’ 


76 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


‘ It seems rather absurd, to be sure,’ observ- 
ed Alexander, ‘ first to complain that the mise- 
ry about us arises from the obstructions imposed 
on human powers, and then to seek to remedy 
it by obstructing the current of human affections.’ 

‘ But what, after all,’ inquired Henry, ‘ have 
these human affections done ? Whence comes 
all this misery, if they have been left free ? ’ 

* They have been rendered impotent by the 
force of bad institutions,’ replied his father ; 
‘they live and act, but are baulked of their 
natural rewards by the injustice of our economy, 
and the impolicy of our government. While 
industry is overloaded and foresight baffled, as 
at present, children may honor their parents, 
and the poor have compassion to one another, 
but they can yield little mutual support against 
indigence.’ 

‘ It seems rather an injury to Ireland, brother,’ 
said Alexander, ‘to ask what its benevolent 
sympathies have done. Our public provision 
for lunacy and sickness, is greater than in Eng- 
land ; and innumerable plans have been tried, 
at a great expense of capital and trouble, to 
lessen the amount of pauperism. That all have 
failed, betokens not a want of charity, but an 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 77 

overpowering counteraction from other quarters. 
If we look only at the Mendicity Associations, 
what vast sums have been raised by them as 
often as the increase of pauperism suggested to 
some the idea of a compulsory rate! All this 
voluntary charity would cease, as it has ceased 
elsewhere, upon the establishment of a poor 
rate. , 

‘ But, father, we ought to give more every 
year as our resources increase ; and they cer- 
tainly are increasing on the whole/ 

‘ They are ; and this is another reason for 
deprecating an institution which would swallow 
up all we have gained, and effectually prevent 
the further progress to improvement. The vast 
and increasing unproductive consumption which 
takes place wherever there is a poor-rate, would 
presently absorb our now growing capital, and 
repress the spirit of improvement which is be- 
ginning to stir among us. Let our capital be 
allowed to spread itself naturally ; let more and 
more of the lower classes be encouraged to 
clothe themselves decently, to add a room to 
their cabin, to exchange a portion of their potato 
diet for oatmeal or bread ; and far more will be 
done for the lowest class of all, than if the earn- 


78 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


ings of the industrious were directly applied to 
the maintenance of paupers. I see bakers’ shops 
beginning to appear in many of our villages; 
and I regard them as an indication of growing 
prosperity. If, in their place, I were to see 
workhouses, or any part of the apparatus of a 
legal charity, I should regard it as an indication 
that a final and overwhelming curse had light- 
ed upon the land.’ 

‘But, father, every poor-rate need not have 
the abuses of the English system. It is not an 
inherent necessity in a poor-rate, that it should 
grow in one century from five hundred thousand 
pounds to eight millions.’ 

‘ No ; but the principle of growth is inherent 
in the system, whether that growth be rapid or 
slow ; and the destruction of the country in 
which it is established becomes merely a ques- 
tion of time. The only way to get the better 
of it is, to annihilate it in time ; and this being 
the case, it is mere folly to call it in for the re- 
lief of temporary evils.’ 

‘ It seems to me,’ said Alexander, ‘ that such 
a system, would aggravate the very evils we want 
to remedy. It is for want of capital that the 
land is subdivided too far. If revenue is so far 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 79 

absorbed by a poor-rate as to check its conver- 
sion into capital, this subdivision will go on.’ 

‘Undoubtedly Such would be the effect in our 
agricultural districts ; and in the manufacturing 
towns the case would be as bad. Our linen- 
weavers would be a burden upon the rates in 
slack times, and their masters must encroach 
upon their wages-fund to support them; and 
thus the masters would be brought lower and 
lower, to the permanent injury of their men.’ 

‘ I do not believe , 5 observed Alexander, 4 that 
the thing could; ever be done here. We have 
not the requisites. All have a nearly equal hor- 
ror of an assessment ; and I could name many 
parishes where there are none to manage the 
business, and many more where no one would 
undertake it.’ 

‘ There would soon ; be an end of that difficul- 
ty , 5 replied Mr. Rosso ; 4 there are people 
enough ready to administer the fund for the 
sake of living upon it. We should have a new 
class of unproductive consumers introduced ; and 
for every one of them we should lose a hardy 
laborer, who would commit to them his aged pa- 
rents and helpless 1 little ones, and go to seek 
good wages in England. A pcor exchange 
truly ! 5 


80 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


‘Do you complain of numbers, father, and 
yet object to the emigration of our poor ? ’ 

‘ To that of productive consumers who leave 
all the helpless members of their families upon 
our hands; and of this kind of emigration there 
would he a vast increase upon the establishment 
of a pauper system. The same influence which 
would supersede domestic charities, would dis- 
solve domestic ties : and would not a legal relief 
be an irresistible temptation to a man to throw 
his burdens upon the public, and go to seek his 
fortune elsewhere ? If it is done already while 
no legal provision exists, it would be done more 
extensively upon the establishment of such a 
provision.’ 

‘Well, then, sir, what would you do ? Some- 
thing, I suppose.’ 

‘ By all means. I would do much, and with- 
out loss of time, lest there should be many lives 
to answer for. — Till education can be made uni- 
versal in Ireland, so that the interests >f the 
people can be safely committed to their own 
guardianship, we must weather the evils which 
surround us, opposing peculiar methods of relief 
to their peculiar stress. We must consolidate 
our small farms ’ 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 31 

‘ 0, father, look about you and see the con- 
sequences ! } 

‘ Hear me out, Henry. We must gradually 
consolidate our farms, removing our ejected 
population, not to other small holdings in the 
neighborhood, but to regions where population 
is the one thing deficient. The people are al- 
ready making efforts to do this for themselves, 
at a tremendous expense of hardship and dan- 
ger. It should be done for them on a better 
plan by those who eject them, on the under- 
standing that it is a temporary measure, caus- 
ed by the new arrangement of landed prop- 
erty. The tenants who remain should be freed 
from the burden of supporting two religious es- 
tablishments, from all interference between them- 
selves and their landlords, from all impediments 
to the free exercise of their industry, and to the 
gradual accumulation of capital/ 

‘ Might not emigration remedy the worst evils 
of the poor-laws, father ? * 

‘ We cannot afford, Henry, to be forever do- 
ing and undoing in any such way. To increase 
numbers by poor-laws and lessen them by emi- 
gration, would cost endless toil and expense, 
and leave our grievances untouched : but as a 
F 


82 


IRISH ADVENTURE. 


temporary measure, as a specific remedy for a 
specific grievance, nothing can be wiser, or, in 
our case, more necessary. Tracey meant to do 
a patriotic thing when he ordered the consolida- 
tion of this estate : the deed would have answer- 
ed to the will, if he had done it more gradually, 
carefully providing a settlement in Canada or 
Australia for ever) family that he displaced.’ 

‘And why not on some of our waste tracts at 
home?’ 

‘Because much capital is required to bring 
them into a productive state ; while, in the case 
of emigration, the only cost incurred is that of 
transportation to a place where capital super- 
abounds and labor is the one thing wanted.’ 

‘ And this then, you think, opens a fair pros- 
pect of improvement.’ 

‘ I do. If this plan be pursued in conjunc- 
tion with the removal of the most. galling of our 
political fetters, we may see Ireland the flourish- 
ing region nature intended her to be. If a pauper 
system be introduced instead, our case is hope- 
less. To use the words of one who well under- 
stands our maladies and their causes, “ its prob- 
able effect appears to me to be to fill Ireland 
with a population multiplying without fore- 


IRISH CRIME. 


33 


thought; impelled to labor principally by the 
fear of punishment; drawing allowance for their 
children, and throwing their parents on the par- 
ish ; considering wages not a matter of contract 
but of right ; attributing every evil to the injus- 
tice of . their superiors; and, when their own 
idleness or improvidence has occasioned a fall 
of wages, avenging it by firing the dwellings, 
maiming the catde, or murdering the persons of 
the landlords and overseers ; combining, in short, 
the insubordination of the freeman with the sloth 
and recklessness of the slave.” ’ 


CHAPTER IV. 

IRISH CRIME. 

The Sullivans and Mahonys were not imme- 
diately pursued. Dora watched by day and 
listened by night, in vain, for tokens of the 
approach of enemies, till she began to believe, 
as she was told, that the place of their retreat 
was not known ; or, if known, was supposed to 
be so surrounded by a disaffected and desperate 
peasantry, as to render any attack too perilous 
to be attempted. That this last supposition was 


84 


IRISH CRIME. 


true she had some reason to believe, though she 
knew little more than Mr. Flanagan himself 
what was passing around her. Her father dis- 
appeared the day after their arrival on the coast ; 
but he had since looked in on them, twice at 
night and once early in the morning, which 
seemed to prove that his abode was not very 
distant from theirs. He brought with him each 
time a supply of whiskey for his sick wife, who 
Was failing fast, and able to enjoy little besides a 
drop of spirits to warm her. These gifts, coup- 
led with what Sullivan had let fall about what 
went on in the bog, led Dora to think that he 
had connected himself with an illicit distillery in 
the neighborhood ; but no confession could she 
get from him but eloquent gestures and signifi- 
cant snatches of song. Dan was yet more 
mysterious. His tenderness to his wife in great 
measure returned after the night of the flitting, but 
there was no confidence with it. He went and 
came at all hours, never saying where he had 
been, or how long he should be absent ; but al- 
ways desiring her not to be uneasy, and showing 
that he thought of home during his excursions 
by bringing little comforts for her mother and 
herself, which she wondered how he could pro- 


IRISH CRIME. 


85 


cure. Once he threw over her shoulders a 
cloak which was much less rent and tattered 
than her own; another time he produced a pack- 
et of tea for his mother-in-law ; and with it a 
handsome tea pot and cups nicely secured in 
straw : lastly appeared a piece of fine linen for 
the use of the expected baby. Dan expected 
very warm thanks for this, as he knew that Do- 
ra’s great anxiety was on account of nothing 
being provided for her little one, who would too 
probably scarcely outlive its birth in circumstan- 
ces of destitution : but Dora looked at her husband 
with anguish in her countenance, saying, 

‘O, husband, you would not doom your child 
before it is born ! You will not wrap it about 
with crime as soon as it sees the light ! This is 
not earned, Dan. It cannot be yours ; and my 
child shall not be touched with that which is 
stolen.’ 

. Dan, far from being angry, coolly observed 
that when there was an end of justice, there was 
an end of law. If he was cut off from earning 
what he wanted, he must take it where he could 
get it ; and to take it thus was a less crime than to 
let his family die of hunger, and his child of cold, 
while food and clothing were within reach. In 


86 


IRISH CRIME. 


answer to his wife’s timid questions what this 
would avail him when the law was urged against 
him, and soldiers were dogging his heels, he 
laughed, and said that if the gentry brought the 
matter to that pass, he and others must fight for 
it. They had driven him out, and must not 
wonder if he did not come in again at their beck 
and call. If the orderlies chose to try their 
strength against the desperates, there should be 
a fair battle. He was ready to fight bravely or 
to swing merrily, according as the powers de- 
creed the one party or the other to prevail. 

Dan could not succeed in any degree in im- 
parting his spirit of recklessness to his wife. 
She became more thoughtful as he grew less 
so: a deeper and deeper melancholy shaded 
her countenance. Her form wasted, her spirits 
were hurried, and she seemed unable to control 
her temper by other means than perfect silence. 
Instead of soothing her mother’s complaints, and* 
patiently answering her incessant questions, as 
formerly, she heard the former in silence, and 
escaped as often as possible from the latter. 
Her practice was to set within the old woman’s 
reach whatever she was likely to want, and then 
wander out, sometimes sitting on a perilous pro- 


IRISH CRIME. 


87 


jection of the cliff to watch the swell of the sea, 
and sometimes hiding herself in a cave immedi- 
ately below the cabin ; whence she would come 
forth occasionally, climb the cliff laboriously, 
peep in at the door stealthily, to see if she was 
wanted within, and creep down again to her 
place of idleness and solitude. Yet it would seem 
as if, even in this place, she heard her husband’s 
step from a distance, so invariably did she ap- 
pear as he approached. At other times she 
came forth when it was not Dan moving over 
the bog, but some less welcome visiter ; and 
then she turned back quickly and tried to evade 
observation. One woman, and another and 
another, came to visit her, she knew not whence 
nor why ; but they were of a more companion- 
able nature than herself, and gave broad hints 
that as their husbands or fathers or sons were 
united in enterprise, the women should be so in 
confidence ; and would have told ma*iy a horri- 
ble tale of what was nightly done and daily suff- 
ered by the band they professed to belong to. 
Dora always stopped such communications at the 
outset; professing that Dan and she belonged to 
nobody and nobody to them, and that all she 
wished for was, to live alone and be left quiet. 


S8 


IRISH CRIME. 


She did not so much as know where her visiters 
came from, she said. They pointed, some to 
the bog, some to the rock§, and others to little 
mounds of turf, from which a thin blue smoke 
was seen at times to curl up. Some hinted at 
an intention of building cabins on the cliff, near 
hers; to which she gave no encouragement. 
This kind of reception did not tempt them to 
repeat their visits very often, and after a short 
time, Dora flattered herself she had got rid of 
all intruders. She was not deceived. In a 
little while she was solitary enough. 

It was a December night, wrapt in that kind 
of gloom which is as a stifling pall descending 
to shroud the world, when a vessel came ashore 
almost directly below Dan’s dwelling. How the 
accident happened, those on board were wholly 
ignorant. They had believed themselves ac- 
quainted with the coast, and felt themselves 
secure while the beacon glimmered south-east of 
them. It did, indeed, only glimmer; but the 
fog lay so thick, that the wonder was how the 
beacon could be seen at all. What wind there 
was blew directly on shore ; so that it was too 
late, when the vessel was once among the 
breakers, to preserve her. She struck ; and with 


IRISH CRIME. 


89 


the first cry uttered by her crew, the supposed 
beacon vanished. The shouts of the mariners 
rose at intervals amidst the hoarse music of the 
waves, which renewed their dirge with every 
human life that they swept away. All might 
have been saved if there had been a ray of light 
to guide their efforts ; but, murky as it was, they 
struggled in vain, while wave upon wave, with- 
out a moment’s pause, found them full of despe- 
rate effort, and left them less able to encounter 
its successor. The first man that gained a foot- 
ing on the beach found himself unable to yield 
the slightest assistance to his companions, and 
looked about for signs of human habitation. The 
only token was a feeble gleam from Dan’s cabin, 
towards which he directed his steps, not perfect- 
ly satisfied at first whether it was light from a 
dwelling on an eminence, or a star seen through 
an opening in the gloom. Tripping, stumbling, 
now climbing, now falling, but still shouting all 
the time, he pursued his way in a direct line to 
the light, fearing every moment that it would 
vanish, like the supposed beacon, and leave him 
no choice but to sit down and wait on the spot 
for dav. When he had drawn near enough to 
feel pretty secure of his object, his shout was 


90 


IRISH CRIME. 


suddenly answered by many voices, in immedi- 
ate succession and from different distances; and 
moving lights at once appeared aloqg tb.e whole 
face of the cliff. A man started out from the 
darkness on either hand of the astonished sailor, 
and told him he was going the wrong way for 
assistance, there being none but women above. 
The sailor, on whom, being a foreigner, this in- 
formation was lost, swore his deepest oaths at 
them for their delay, and for the artifice by which 
he suspected the vessel had been purposely 
brought on shore. His wrath, vented in unin- 
telligible threats, was only laughed at. 

‘Be easy, now,’ said one. ‘ Sure it takes a 
man a long time to wake with such a lullaby 
going on all the while. * 

‘ Sure a darker curtain was never about a 
sleeping man’s head than this fog,’ observed an- 
other. 

‘ The beacon!’ exclaimed a third; ‘it’s just 
the drop made you see double, that’s all. The 
beacon is far away south., and yon cabin’s the 
only light. ’ 

Their explanations were as much wasted as 
the foreigner’s wrath ; and after a prodigious 
expense of eloquence on both sides, recourse 


IRISH CRIME. 


91 


was bad to action, the purport of which was 
presently intelligible enough. A shrill whistle 
set all the wandering lights converging towards 
the beach : the sailor’s two guides, whose outer 
garment was a shirt, bound round the waist with 
a hayband, in which pistols and knives were 
stuck, slung their lanterns to their belts, seized 
each an arm of the stranger, and led him rapid- 
ly down the cliff. Instead of permitting him to 
proceed towards the wreck, they ordered him 
into the cave whither Dora often resorted, and 
set a guard of two men over him. One after 
another, five of his companions were brought to 
join him, the guard being strengthened in pro- 
portion. When no more live men could be 
found about the wreck, a small supply of food 
and spirits, and materials for making a fire, were 
sent into the cave, as an intimation that all the 
business was over in which the crew was to have 
any share. The poor wretches, soaked, batter- 
ed, exhausted in body, and harassed in mind 
with grief and panic, were not interfered with 
by their guards, except when their lamentations 
became dangerously audible. 

The work of violence on the beach mean- 
while went on rapidly : all that the vessel con- 


92 


IRISH CRIME, 


tained was seized, and put out of sight, and 
great part of the wreck broken up and carried 
away before morning. The iaim of some of the 
people employed was the' very amusing joke of 
persuading the foreigners, on bringing them out 
into the daylight, that their vessel had been con- 
jured away bodily to a distant point, whither they 
were to be sent to seek it. These people were 
scarcely aware how some of their noisy opera- 
tions were heard by the crew, and how well they 
understood the knocking, heaving, and crashing, 
and especially the shouts which followed ev- 
ery grand achievement in the process of de- 
struction. 

Dan was among the plunderers. He was not 
at liberty to decline any enterprise proposed by 
the captain of the gang with which he had asso- 
ciated himself ; and on his return from a distant 
expedition, which had detained him from his 
home for some days, he found himself called 
upon, in fulfilment of his oath, to take part in a 
scene of plunder, of a kind which he abhorred, 
in sight of his own dwelling. While he was 
ordered to rob middlemen, terrify agents, ana 
half-murder tithe-proctors, he discharged his 
mission with hearty good will, under the notion 


IRISH CRIME. 


93 


of avenging his own wrongs: but it was quite a 
different thing to delude foreigners, put them in 
peril of their lives, and strip them of every thing ; 
and he said so. In reply, he was reminded of 
his oath (an oath too solemn to be slighted), 
and immediately commanded, as a test of obe- 
dience, to take up a bale of goods from the 
wreck, and carry it up to find house room in his 
cabin. He did so with a heavy heart, dreading 
thus to meet Dora, after a separation of some 
days. She had never yet seen him equipped as 
a whiteboy, or been expressly told what occupa- 
tion he followed. 

He paused outside, leaning against the door- 
less entrance to watch what was passing within. 
All was so strange and fearful, that a deadly 
horror came over him, lest the one whom he 
saw moving about should not be the real Do- 
ra, but some spirit in her likeness. She was 
employed about her mother’s corpse, which lay 
on the bare ground. Her motions were So rap- 
id as to appear almost convulsive. Now she 
kneeled beside the body, straightening the limbs, 
and striving in vain to cover it completely with a 
piece of linen which was too small for the pur- 
pose ; now she fixed her one rush-light in a 


94 


IRISH CRIME. 


lump of clay, and placed it at the head ; now 
she muttered from beneath the hair which fell 
over her face as she stooped ; and then, lean- 
ing back, uttered the shrill funeral cry with a 
vehemence which brought some color back to 
her ashy pale countenance. 

‘Whisht, whisht!’ muttered she impatiently 
to herself. ‘ I have given the cry, and nobody 
comes. Father Glenny forgot me long ago, 

and my own father has forgot us, and Dan 

I don’t know what has been done to Dan, and 
he tells no body. He won’t forget me long, 
however.’ 

‘ Forget you, Dora !’ said Dan, gently, as he 
laid hold of her cloak. ‘ Did I keep my oath 
so long when you lived in your father’s cabin in 
the glen, and shall I forget you now ? ’ 

She folded her arms in her cloak with a look 
of indifference, as she glanced at the bale he 
carried. 

‘ O, you have brought a sheet, as I was want- 
ing, ’ said she; ‘but where are the candles? I 
have but this one and nothing in the way of a 
shutter or a door, you see ; and there’s no 
company come yet; so you will have time. 
Make haste, Dan. ’ 


IRISH CRIME. 


95 


1 Shall I bid the neighbors to the wake ? ’ in- 
quired Dan, who thought the best way of gain- 
ing her attention was to help her to fulfil first the 
duties to the dead, which rank so high among 
social obligations in Ireland. 

At a sign from her he threw down his load 
and hastened to the beach, whence he brought 
a plank, on which to lay the body, candles 
wherewith to illuminate the bier, and spirits with 
which to exercise hospitality. He gave notice, 
at the same time, to his captain and comrades, 
that when a blaze should be seen on the cliff, 
and the funeral lament heard, all would be ready 
for their reception at the wake : — the burning of 
the bed of the deceased before the door, and 
the utterence of the death cry, being the cus- 
tomary mode of invitation to the wakes of the 
Irish poor. 

Dan was yet more struck with the deathlike 
paleness of his wife’s face when he again joined 
her. He inquired whether any neighbors had 
helped her to nurse her mother, and whether 
her rest had been much broken : but she scarce- 
ly attended to his questions. She clapped her 
hands, as if in. glee, at sight of what he brought, 
and seemed altogether so much more like a wil- 


96 


IRISH CRIME. 


ful child, than like his thoughtful and devoted 
Dora, that the fancy again crossed him that some 
mocking fiend had taken possession of her form. 
He asked her, with much internal trembling, 
whether she had duly prayed this night? She 
started, and said she had strangely forgotten her- 
self ; and forthwith went through her customary 
devotions in a way which, though hurried, was 
very unlike any which a fiend would dare to at- 
tempt; and Dan was so far satisfied. 

4 Bring out the bed/ said she, pointing to the 
straw on which her mother had been wont to lie. 
4 While it is burning, I will raise the cry once 
more, and see if any one will 00016/ 

Dan moved a bundle which lay on the straw, 
but let it go again in a pang of horror when the 
feeble cry of an infant proceeded from it. In 
an instant he understood all. He took up the 
child, and placed it on Dora’s bosom without 
saying a word. 

‘ O, my child : ay; I forgot it when I forgot 
my prayers; but it cannot have been hungry 
long, I’m thinking. Hold him while I strip off 
my cloak that keeps me as hot as if I had a fire 
burning within me.’ And she carelessly slip- 
ped the babe into her husband’s arms. 


IRISH CRIME. 


97 


* O Dora !’ cried he in a choking voice, ‘ is 
this the way you give a child of ours into my arms 
for the first time? ’ 

She looked at him with perplexity in her coun- 
tenance, said she knew nothing at all about it, 
and before he could prevent her, set fire to the 
straw, and gave the other appointed signal. Up 
came the company of whiteboys, crowding round 
the cabin, rushing to the bier, and exciting Dora 
more and more every moment by their looks and 
their proceedings. She now, for the first time, 
perceived the peculiarity of her husband’s dress. 
She went from one to another, observing upon the 
arms they carried, and stopped at last before Dan, 
who was in earnest conversation with his captain. 

‘ So you have enrolled yourself, Dan ! So 
you have plighted and pledged yourself to your 
band since you swore you would wed me only. 
Much may they do for you that I could not do ! 
but O, may they never do you the evil that I 
would not do ! They may give you clothes' these 
winter nights, when I have nothing warmer at 
home for you than my own heart. They may 
find you whiskey and lights for the wake, and 
other things as you want them ; but they will 
make you pay more than you ever paid to me, 
G * 


98 


IRISH CRIME. 


Dan. They will take you among snares in the 
night : they will set you on other men’s beasts 
to go over bogs where you will sink, and under 
rocks that will crush you: they will set you 
where bullets are flying round you; they will 
put a knife in your hand and make you dip 
your soul in blood. If you refuse, they will 
burn you and me together within four walls; 
and if you agree, they will lead you on to some- 
thing worse than bogs or rocks, or a soldier’s 
shot: they will send you to be set before the 
judge, and refused mercy, and then . . . 

4 For Christ’s sake stop her 1 ’ exclaimed Dan. 
He seized her hands to prevent her stripping his 
white boy uniform from his shoulders, as soof* 
as he had given his baby in charge to a com- 
passionate by-stander. 

4 Move the corpse,’ ordered the captain. 
4 Keep the wake down below, and bring the first 
woman you can meet with, to tend this poor 
creature. Clear the cabin instantly.’ 

4 Give the word, captain,’ cried one, ‘and 
we’ll catch a doctor, — the same that we brought 
blindfold when O’Leary was murthered almost. 
We’ll whip up horses, and have him here and 
home by noon.’ 


IRISH CRIME. 


99 


‘ No, no ; not tiH we see what the women say. 
Hilloo, boys I bring out the bier, fair and easy, 
and decent.’ 

Dora’s struggles to follow were fierce, and 
her cries at being kept from this duty heart- 
rending. No one could effectually quiet her till 
she had been some hours committed to the care 
of a matron, who was brought from some invisi- 
ble place to nurse her. 

Slowly and sadly she recovered. Some said 
she was never again the same Dora ; but others 
saw no further change than the melancholy 
which was likely to become fixed in her by such 
an experience as her’s. She could never re- 
call any circumstances connected with the death 
of her mother and the birth of her child. She 
could only suppose, as her husband did, that 
the old woman’s exertions had sufficed for her 
daughter, and been fatal to herself. 

Sullivan made his appearance ere long from 
underground, where he had been engaged in 
breaking the laws after his own method. He 
was duly grieved at having been absent from the 
burial of his wife ; but hoped to atone for the in- 
voluntary neglect, by devoting his gains at the 
still to the purchase of masses for her soul. 


100 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 


CHAPTER V. 

IRISH RETRIBUTION. 

It was not possible that the acts of outrage, 
of which the whiteboys from Tracey’s estate 
and others were guilty, should remain long un- 
noticed by the officers of the law. The foreign- 
ers, who had been deprived of their wrecked 
vessel, had been, the next morning, tied two and 
two, and conducted into the neighborhood of a* 
road, by which they might reach a town, and 
relate their hardships. Three of their number 
were missing, and they did not fail to attribute 
their disappearance to those who had done all 
the other mischief. As they went along the 
road, and through small villages, they met with 
little sympathy in any of their complaints against 
whiteboys; but the townspeople were of a differ- 
ent temper, and Ballina and Killala soon rang 
with the tidings of the horrible outrage which 
had been committed on the coast. The alarm 
spread through the whole district. There was, 
daily, news of intended attacks, which never took 
place; exaggerated reports of the numbers of the 
disaffected, and of their deeds, got abroad; and 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 101 

many a dweller in a lone house, many an oppres- 
sor with an unquiet conscience, — all who had 
wealth in their houses, and all who suspected 
that they had enemies abroad, — trembled, as 
often as the long winter nights settled down, 
whether in starless gloom, or upon tracts of 
moon-lit snow. The rovers did not fail to make 
use of the panic, while it lasted, to punish their 
enemies, and beat up for recruits among their 
friends. Opposition gave way before them in 
every direction ; and many and various were the 
tokens of welcome they met wherever the popu- 
lation had tasted of oppression, or were strug- 
gling with hardship. The immediate occasion 
of the first check they encountered was an insult 
offered to an obnoxious landed proprietor, — an 
insult which roused him from fireside declama- 
tion to military action. His finest trees, some of 
which had ornamented the lawn of his mansion 
for an untold length of time, had been cut down 
in one night. He had looked westward the 
preceding evening, and seen the red sun tinge 
the tufts of snow that rested on their branchy 
heads; he looked again in the. morning, and 
they lay like so many monuments of the gran- 
deur that had been. He galloped off after 


102 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 


breakfast in search of brother magistrates, sol- 
diers, informers, guides, and all that was neces- 
sary for dislodging the enemy from their en- 
trenchments. He would not wait till his usual 
body-guard had assembled, but ventured out 
with only a groom behind him. He had long 
suspected that some of his enemies were no 
further entrenched than in their own discretion, 
and that they were living and moving on all sides 
of him . He was now sure of it, from the ambigu- 
ous greeting which met him on all sides. He nev- 
er remembered so many inquiries as to how all 
went on at the Hall, and such tender concern 
about his honor’s rest o’nights, and so many re- 
marks upon the marvellous darkness of the preced- 
ing night. He perceived signals pass across the 
road, before and behind him, — thought he de- 
tected hidings behind the fences, — was sure 
that an ominous whoop travelled over the bog 
westward, — and that more than one gossoon 
only waited till the horses were past, to begin 
an expedition in the same direction. 

It was indeed the case, as usual, that instant 
tidings were conveyed of the motions of those 
who had been recently injured. Mr. Connor’s 
departure from home, his application to this 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 


103 


magistrate, and consultation with that, and the 
grand letter which his groom was seen to put 
into his bosom and to ride off with in the midst 
of an escort, and the other letter carried to the 
post-office, which looked just like it, were all 
faithfully reported of to Dan’s captain, in time 
to have the express turned back without his 
despatch, and the next mail stopped, in order to 
rifle the letter-bag. These expedients, however, 
could not long avail. Soldiers were at length 
knbwn to be on the way, and suitable prepara- 
tions were made for their reception. In one of 
the most important of these, Dora bore a prin- 
cipal part. 

Her husband, whose absences had been short- 
er jand less frequent, until he saw that she was 
perfectly recovered and able to occupy herself 
with her infant, but were now again lengthening, 
came to her one night, and, gently waking her, 
told her that her services were wanted by him- 
self, and three or four companions who were 
waiting outside. 

‘Troth, then, my jewel,’ said he, ‘there’s no 
need to be trembling and staring as if we were 
about carrying you off. You are not going out 
of this } and the whole matter is nothing ir life 


104 IRISH RETRIBUTION. 

but writing a slip of a letter, my darling, because 
it’s you that will be doing it neat and pretty.’ 

One of the party, brought paper, pen, and ink, 
and as soon as Dora could steady her hand 
sufficiently, she wrote to her husband’s dicta^ 
tion, subject to the suggestions of his compan- 
ions : — 

; Major Greaves, 

‘ Come no farther nor the big elms in Ros- 
so’s demesne, or it will be the worse for your- 
self and them you bring. What you come to 
ask us for is a trifle that gentlemen should not 
be thinking of asking of poor men, even if the 
ship was a ship still, which it is not, never having 
been more than an awkward boat, and that now 
burnt and gone entirely, so as not to be given 
up, except the arms, which will be offered in a 
different way from that you expect, if a man of 
you sets foot beyond the elms. Take heed to 
the ground, sir, which is mostly such as would 
bog a snipe, and you without a guide that may 
be trusted ; for there’s not a boy in the glen that 
would do your honor the ill turn to bring you 
here. There are eels in the bog, sir, that slide 
easy out of the hand when you would take them ; 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 105 

and your honor will find we take after the eels, 
except that you will be much the worse of not 
taking us, — being taken yourselves. One word 
more out of kindness. — No enemy ever sets foot 
out of this place more, barring he takes us as 
his prisoners, which not a man of us will ever be : 
so, unless you come to pick and choose a grave 
for every man of you, stir not a step farther than 
the big elms, near which one will meet you with 
this. ’ 

Having amused themselves with inventing 
gibberish for the signature, and making rude 
drawings below of guns, pikes, and gibbets, orna- 
mented with shamrock, the letter was folded, 
neat and pretty, and confided to one of the par- 
ty, to be forwarded. Dan wondered that Dora 
made no remonstrance against being involved in 
such a proceeding ; and, for a moment, suspect- 
ed her of the weakness of being flattered, by the 
compliments paid to her writing, into a disregard 
of what it was that she had written : but Dora’s 
passiveness arose from a sense of the uselessness 
of opposition, as far as the letter was concerned, 
and of its injurious influence on her domestic 
state. She would give Dan no shadow of a 


106 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 


reason for leaving his home as he did. Her 
groan, when he kissed her and bade her fare- 
well, on the letter being finished, went to his 
heart. He told her, that it was for her sake, as 
well as for duty, that he must leave her, the 
boys being now on the look out to keep the en- 
emy at a distance. He came back to whisper 
that, in case of real difficulty, she might be easy 
about himself and her father, as each man had 
a hiding-place in the bog, theirs being below a 
certain stunted alder bush, which she well knew. 

F rom this hour, the sole employment of Dora, 
when not engaged within with her infant, was to 
sit with her eyes fixed upon this alder bush. 
No news came to her of the proceedings either 
of her people or of the enemy ; but as long as 
she saw no sign from the appointed place, she 
knew that matters were not desperate. In frost 
or in fog, in sunshine and in rain, Dora sat 
abroad or paced along the ridge above her cabin, 
bending her gaze till she grew dizzy upon the 
black turf around the alder bush. There was 
not a tuft of moss, nor a twig, nor a rush, that 
was not presently as familiar to her as if she 
had planted them all. Every evening, as it 
became dusk, she drew nearer and nearer to 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. J 07 

the place, and, when it was quite dark, sat on 
the very spot as long as her child could spare 
her. Every morning, she devised some appa- 
rent reason, in case of curious eyes looking on, 
for making a circuit of the alder bush ; and re- 
turned with a somewhat lightened heart, when 
she found no indication of any one being there. 

This painful watching could not go on for- 
ever, though Dora began to think it would. 
Some one at last appeared to be moving in that 
direction through the dusk of a foggy morn- 
ing, now ducking and vanishing, now crawling 
among the uneven ground, now cautiously raising 
himself and looking about him. After vanishing 
near the alder, he appeared no more. Dora 
proceeded thither, and found her father. 

‘Where is Dan?’ was her first question. 
Somewhere near, her father told her, but too 
busy to Sj^ek a hiding at present. It was only 
the old and helpless who were thus allowed to 
get out of the way ; all who could fight, were 
out against the soldiers. Dan meant to come 
to her by the coast way this day, if possible, just 
to tell her what he was about. 

Sullivan had provided himself with a supply 
of his own manufacture ; but he had no food. 


103 


rish retribution. 


Dora hastened to bring him some while it was 
still dusk, and she promised more at night, in 
case of his being unable to leave his hiding- 
place before that time. Sullivan joked on the 
chances of an old man’s keeping soul and body 
together in such a place for twelve hours, and 
promised to thank her heartily for food and 
warmth at night, barring he was dead. He 
bade her not be scared at the soldiers if they 
should cross-examine her this day ; she was not 
his own daughter, he declared, if she could not 
delude the ruffians, and save her own kith and 
kin at their expense. Dora retired home to 
watch more nervously than ever, since she was 
listening for her husband’s footstep from below ; 
and to meditate on the entanglements of these 
her kith and kin. Her father had broken the 
law in the matter of the distillery, and her hus- 
band was under ban for burning his laj£ dwell- 
ing, for his share in the robbery of the wreck, 
and probably for many more feats of whiteboy- 
ism, of which she had yet heard nothing. Her 
own liabilities she did not for a moment remem- 
ber ; yet the act of writing a threatening letter 
was uniformly punished very severely, whenever 
the perpetrators could be discovered. She 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 


109 


stood in nearly as much jeopardy as her hus- 
band ; and he knew it ; and the purpose of his 
intended visit of this day was to convey her to a 
hiding. Her father was not aware of what she 
had done, and therefore thought no more than 
herself of her being in any danger. 

How often since being involved in these trou- 
bles had she sighed for an opportunity of con- 
fession ! It was long since she had eased -her 
conscience ; and she felt it among the greatest 
of the sins the family had committed, that they 
had cut themselves off from the services of de- 
votion, and what she thought the means of re- 
pentance. Again and again, in her solitude, 
she had meditated a night expedition to Father 
Glenny’s dwelling ; but it was a step she dared 
not take without Dan’s approbation; and he 
always put her off without an express permission. 
At this crisis she was more than ever distressed 
at her own spiritual state, and said to herself that 
her mind was so perplexed by her long solitude, 
and her conscience so burdened with an accu- 
mulation of sins, that she was not equal to what 
she might have to go through. Her ingenuity 
and presence of mind were gone, and she felt 
that, at the first question, she should betray either 


110 IRISH RETRIBUTION. 

her conscience or her cause ; that is, that she 
should either tell a direct lie or the plain truth, 
instead of being able to baffle and mislead, as 
she had been taught it was meritorious to do, on 
such an occasion. She had not much time to 
ponder her case. 

As soon as the fogs began to disperse before 
the risen sun, she saw a glancing and gleaming 
on the extreme point of the track which led from 
the glen into this district. It was the glittering 
of the arms of a strong party of soldiers, who 
were accompanied by several horsemen in plain 
clothes, probably some of the neighboring gentry 
who had offered their services as guides ; none 
of the country people having been found trust- 
worthy in the office. Dora’s heart beat thicker 
and thicker as she traced them among the wind- 
ings of the bog road. Presently they stopped at 
a cross track, and separated into three parties, as 
if more for purposes of search than battle. One 
of these parties, the smallest, seemed to receive 
directions from the gentry as to the course they 
should pursue, and then turned directly towards 
the alder bush. Folding her arms forcibly on 
her bosom, to keep down her agitation, she stood 
conspicuous on the ridge of the* cliff, hoping to 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 


Ill 


draw their attention to herself. They looked 
about them at every step ; but not more keenly 
when alongside the alder bush than before. 
They passed it, and one pang was over. They 
came rapidly towards her, and she turned to 
enter the cabin. They shouted ; she stopped, 
and awaited them with every appearance of 
willingness, gazing at the officer and his six 
soldiers as a child gazes at a show. 

£ Where do you live, my good woman ? 9 in- 
quired the officer. She pointed to the cabin. 

‘Who lives with you?’ 

‘ My child. My mother did live here too, 
but she died many weeks ago.’ 

‘And your father ? ’ 

‘ I had a father too, your honor : but he is m 
the ground. Soft may the rain fall, and warm 
may the sun shine on the turf that hides him ! ’ 

‘ Is not your name Dora Mahony ? I was 
told your father was alive, and engaged in some 
unlawful doings hereabouts.’ 

‘ He told me nothing of the nature of his 
doings, and it is not from strangers that I wish 
to learn them, when he is not here to speak for 
himself. Keep what you have to say against 
him till the judgment day ’ 


1 12 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 


4 How long has your father been dead ? We 
know he left the glen with you.’ 

4 He was hid from the light of day before my 
mother shut her eyes upon it forever. One of 
my griefs was, that he was not here to wake her. 
O, it went to my heart to lay hei^out with my 
own hands, and none to help : and i raised the 
cry many times, and no one came. How should 
they in such a lonesome place ? ’ 

4 Where was your husband, Dora ? It was 
not being a good husband to leave you at such 
a time,’ 

4 It was before that, that he left me, and he 
knew nothing of my state. F ar, far away he 
was before my mother breathed her last blessing 
on him ; if a blessing she had for him, which is 
just what, with many other things, I have no 
memory of, your .honor. I was crazed with 
grief, I suppose, for my husband having left 
me ; and all is lost and gone belonging to that 
time, but the crying and crying on the cliff, and 
nobody coming.’ 

She was next questioned about the shipwreck ; 
and here she was safe. She knew nothing of 
the matter but by hearsay, and could not answer 
a single question. Then came inquiries whither 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 113 

her husband had gone. She did not know* 
from place to place, she supposed, as he did 
before he married. It was a sore temptation to 
a man to leave a wife when he was turned out 
of his tenantcy into a desert like this, while he 
knew that there were work and wages to be got 
elsewhere. — When did she expect her husband 
back, and how was she living in the mean- 
time ? — As for the living, it had been off the 
provision of potatoes they brought with them ; 
but it was nearly gone, and she did not know 
what to look to next. She had thought many a 
night and day of seeking out Father Glenny and 
some of her old neighbors ; but the fear lest her 
husband should come back and miss her, weigh- 
ed with her to stay where she was. As to 
when that return would be, many was the morn 
when she said to herself, as she did this morn, 
that he would come before the sun went down ; 
but the sun staid for none, and solitary it ever 
left her, as solitary it found her. They might 
as well ask her child about it as her, — the child 
that was now crying for her in the cabin, and 
she must go to it. 

As she turned, she found herself intercepted 
by two soldiers, who barred her entrance. A 
H 


1 14 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 


third went in and bronght her baby to her. She 
smiled, and said she did not object to being kept 
out of her own cabin as long as the sky was fair 
overhead. 

4 Will you take a solemn oath,’ asked the offi- 
cer, 4 that your husband is not concealed within, 
or in the neighborhood ? and will you deliver 
up arms and whatever else may belong to him 
that is in your keeping ? * 

Dora declared that she feared an oath too 
much to swear that her husband was not in any 
place near, when she did not know where on 
the face of God’s earth he was. She would 
swear that he was not in the cabin, nor any arms 
or other things of his, unless it might be any 
article of clothing left behind. She would swear 
that she did not know whether he was north, 
south, east, or west at that moment. This was 
thought satisfactory, and she took the oath de- 
liberately, looking the officer full in the face as 
she spoke. This done, the soldiers were or- 
dered to search the cabin, and Dora sat down 
on the ridge to hush her baby to sleep, and 
catch opportunities of throwing hasty glances 
down to the beach. — Before many minutes were 
over, the searchers reappeared, bringing with 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 115 

them a dozen pikes, a blunderbuss, and three 
brace of pistols. 

‘ You brought them in yourselves/ said Do- 
ra calmly. 6 There were none there before, to 
my knowledge. 5 

£ Come, come, mistress,’ said the officer ; ‘ no 
more speeches. A false oath is enough for one 
morning’s work, and more than you will be able 
easily to answer for. You must come with us 
and take your trial for perjury.’ 

Dora declared with such an appearance of 
innocence that she neither knew of these arms 
nor could imagine how they came there, and in- 
quired so naturally whereabouts they were found, 
that the officer appeared to be moved. He ask- 
ed whether she would furnish him with a writ- 
ten promise to appear when called upon, to give 
her account of the matter to a magistrate, to 
save the trouble of carrying her with them this 
day. The simple Dora, delighted with so easy a 
way of escape, and suspecting no artifice, wrote 
the required promise in the officer’s pocket- 
book. As soon as she had done, he took out a 
letter and compared the hands. * Seize her,’ 
said he to a soldier beside her : ‘ she is our pris- 
oner.’ 


116 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 


‘ Prisoner ! ’ repeated Dora, falteringly. 

‘ On two charges,’ continued the officer ; ‘ one 
of perjury, on account of the oath you took just 
now ; and the other of writing a threatening let- 
ter to Major Greaves.’ 

Perceiving that some whispering was going on 
among his men, the officer observed that the 
crime of perjury was so much on the increase in 
Ireland, as to make it necessary to prosecute it 
with the utmost severity. The convictions for 
perjury in Ireland were double the number in 
England, and very many more who had been 
undoubtedly guilty had hitherto escaped. In 
the present state of the country, justice could not 
have its course while the people were apt to 
swear falsely; and every instance of such swear- 
ing must therefore be punished. 

‘ What is it that- drives the people to swear 
falsely?’ cried Dora. 4 You first teach them to 
take the holy name in vain by offering oaths 
that they understand no more than this babe of 
mine. There are oaths to the guager, and oaths 
at the fair and the market, and oaths at elections, 
that have no meaning at all to those that take 
them ; and the blessed book is tossed about as it 
there was no more in it than old ballads. But 


IRISH RETR.BUTION. 117 

when you have driven us from our homes, and 
taken from us all the bread but that which comes 
by crime, — when you have dug a pit under our 
feet, and thrown a halter over our necks, and 
made our hearts sick, and our spirits weary, and 
our consciences careless of what is gone and 
what is to come, — when you hunt our husbands 
and fathers and brothers till there is but one 
resting-place for the sole of their feet, — then 
you expect us of a sudden to fear an oath, and 
to point out the one hiding-place, and to de- 
liver them up to be hanged in the midst of a 
gaping crowd. This is the way you make it a 
crime to love one another as God made our 
hearts to love. This is the way you breed ha- 
tred to the law, and then murder us for hating 
it. This is the way you mock God’s truth, and 
then pretend to be jealous for it. This is what 
you call the course of justice. It is such a 
crooked course, that you will surely lose your- 
selves in it one day.’ 

‘ If you threaten me, Dora, by words, as you 
threatened Major Greaves by letter, there will 
be another charge against you.’ 

4 And what are my threats?’ replied she, smil- 
ing bitterly. 1 You may take me and murder 


118 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 


me by law or otherwise, and there will be none 
that can call you to account, unless it be Father 
Glenny. You will outlive yonder sun if your 
life waitjp on my threats.’ 

The officer was not so sure of this when he 
saw how earnestly she glanced from time to time 
towards some particular spot in an opposite di- 
rection from the alder bush. It was an artifice ; 
for Dora now began to be cunning, and to wish 
an end to this visit, lest her husband should ap- 
pear from the beach. To various inquiries re- 
specting tracks in the direction in which she was 
looking, she replied by asking, had they not bet- 
ter go back the way they came, since they knew 
that to be safe ? By equivocating, hesitating, 
and giving ambiguous answers, she effected her 
purpose of determining the party to cross the 
most perilous part of the bog, where, if not lost, 
they would be disabled for further active service 
this day. A soldier was left to guard her till 
their return. As he ordered her into the cabin, 
and the rest rode away, her heart smote her as 
if she had their blood to answer for. She rush- 
ed out to call them back, but was only ridiculed 
for what was supposed to be her last device. 

‘ I did not speak the word ; I did not point 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 


119 


the way/ muttered she to herself. ‘ They can 
witness against the devil himself that I called 
them back, and they would not come. But, O ! 
when shall I see Father Glenny? If he was 
here, he would tell me how much I may venture 
as a woman, because I am a wife and a daughter.’ 

Still she felt as if murder was on her soul, and 
her trouble of spirit showed itself in the hurry 
of what she did. She picked a hole in the mud 
wall of her cabin, since her guard would not 
allow her to watch from without the proceedings 
of the party. While thus engaged, she argued 
within herself ( like thousands of her countrymen 
before her ) the necessity of doing evil that good 
might come; the expediency of betraying the 
agents of the law, to avoid treachery to the 
nearest and dearest ; the duty of sacrificing ene- 
mies in order to preserve those on whom the 
heart’s love rests. Alas ! for those who have 
taught any thus to reason ! 

When she had made a chink large enough for 
her purpose, she saw that the party had separa- 
ted a little in order to traverse more safely the 
boggy tract before them. Each, however, ap- 
peared shortly to be sinking, sinking; — and from 
a distance came their faint shouts to one anoth- 


120 IRISH RETRIBUTION. 

er ; — and the efforts to rein up and direct the 
struggling horses were seen. The conviction 
that her scheme was succeeding, — or, as she 
afterwards said, the devil in actual presence, — 
gave her courage to look on and act. Presently 
she stole to the doorway to reconnoitre her 
guard. He was standing with his back to the 
sea, watching his party, and as if spasm-struck 
at their manifest danger. Dora sprang at him 
like a tiger-cat upon her prey. She hoped to 
throw him down the cliff. At the first moment,, 
she had nearly succeeded ; hut he recovered his 
hold of her while tottering on the verge, grap- 
pled strongly with her for a few moments, and 
then mastered her failing strength. He was in 
a tremendous passion at her for her momentary 
advantage over him, and showing it in other 
wavs besides oaths and foul names. He tied 
her hands painfully behind her, and kicked her 
into the hut again. The utmost mercy she 
could obtain after a time, was having her bonds 
transferred to her feet, for her infant’s sake. 
When this was done, her guard told her to look 
through the chink, and see what was coming. 
She thanked heaven aloud when she saw the 
party returning, bemired and exhausted, but un- 
diminished in number. 


IRISH RETRIBUTION. 121 

‘Why there, now,’ said her guard; ‘there’s 
your Irish hypocrisy again ! You thank God 
that they are out of the bog, when you know 
you would have them all sunk to the bottom of 
it this minute, if you could. And you are the 
people that call yourselves generous enemies! ’ 

‘ I5 for one, was not given to enmity till I 
was driven to it,’ said Dora. 

When the discomfited party arrived, the pri- 
soner,^ with her infant in her arms, was mounted 
behind a soldier, and carried off to jail. While 
passing the alder bush, she was in an agony lest 
her father should leap out in her defence. She 
carefully avoided looking that way and speaking, 
while they were within hearing of the place. 
Sullivan saw her pass ; but aware of the hope- 
lessness of resistance, adopted the wiser course 
of remaining where he was to inform Dan of 
her fate ; thus sparing the husband the misery, 
— alas ! too well known to some of his compan- 
ions, — of finding his house empty, and no inti- 
mation why or whither his family had departed. 

During her somewhat long and very toilsome 
journey, Dora had no other consolatory thought 
than that Dan had not come home this dreadful 
morning. 


122 


IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 


CHAPTER VI. 

IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 

Mr. Tracey and his family returned from 
France about this time, in consequence of the 
passing of the Relief Bill. He had found, like 
many other gentlemen of station and fortune, that 
the disabilities under which he labored on ac- 
count of his religious belief, were too galling to 
be borne in the presence of those who were 
ready on all occasions to taunt him with his in- 
capacity ; and, like many other gentlemen, he 
returned, as soon as established in his civil rights, 
to discharge the offices which he had committed 
to others during his absence, or from which he 
had hitherto been excluded. 

He was shocked and terrified at the aspect 
of his estate and of the neighboring country. 
When he gave orders for the consolidation of the 
small farms, he imagined that he had done all 
that was necessary to secure the prosperity of 
his tenantry ; and as Mr. Flanagan had not 
troubled him with any complaints from the ejec- 
ted, he supposed all had gone right as far as he 
was concerned, and that the troubles in the 


IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 


123 


neighborhood, of which report spoke, had an 
origin for which he was in no way responsible. 
When he found that the disaffected were those 
from whose hands he had wrenched the means 
of subsistence, and that his remaining tenantry 
dared not for their lives enter upon the new 
farms, — when he heard of the acts of malice and 
depredation which had been committed, of the 
lives lost, of the prisoners taken, of the utter 
destruction of confidence between the upper class 
and the lower in his neighborhood, and remem- 
bered how large a share he had had in doing all 
this mischief, — his first impulse was to go abroad 
again, and get out of sight of his own work : but 
his friend, Mr. Rosso, roused him to a better 
course. 

The first thing to be done was to find subsist- 
ence for those who had been ejected. To set- 
tle them as before would have been mending 
the case but little. The great evil of over-pop- 
ulation was to be guarded against, at all events. 
Mr. Tracey could not afford to give these peo- 
ple the means of emigrating with advantage ; but 
it appeared to himself and his friend that if he 
afforded them the opportunity of earning these 
means, without taking work out of the hands of 


124 IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 

any already employed, he would be making the 
best atonement now possible for the errors of 
his management. This might be done by be- 
ginning some work which would improve the es- 
tate; and there was little difficulty in deciding 
what this work should be. A certain fishing 
village lay at a short distance from the southern 
extremity of Mr. Tracey’s estate ; but from the 
state of an intervening piece of land, little or no 
communication was held between this village and 
any of the places which lay to the north or east 
of it. This piece of ground was level, and al- 
most perpetually overflowed, at some seasons by 
the tide, and at others by land springs. During 
a hot summer, the health of those who lived 
within a certain distance was affected by the taint 
the marsh gave to the atmosphere ; and by rea- 
son of the manifold evils which might be refer- 
red to this slip of land, it had obtained the name 
of the Devil’s Garden. It had long been settled 
that a sea wall of small extent, and a road and 
ditch would put an end to the fever, would es- 
tablish an advantageous communication with the 
.village, and probably convert this desert tract 
into good land : but the consent of a neighbor or 
two had not vet been obtained, because not ask- 
ed in earnest. 


IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 125 

Mr. Tracey now asked in earnest and obtain- 
ed. In a short time his purpose was made 
known, and candidates for emigration (to whom 
the offer of employment was confined) dropped 
in from all quarters, and established their claim 
as old tenants or laborers on Mr. Tracey’s es- 
tate. No questions were asked as to their mode 
of subsistence during their disappearance. The 
object was to win as many as possible from a 
life of violence to one of hopeful industry, and 
this object was gradually attained. Less was 
heard of crime and punishment, week by week ; 
and at length Mr. Tracey had the satisfaction 
of knowing that several individuals among these 
laborers had resisted various inducements both 
of promises and threats to become whiteboys. 

‘What is the meaning of their tickets?’ in- 
quired Mr. Rosso, one evening, when the peo- 
ple went to the pay master on leaving work, and 
Mr. Tracey and his friend stood by to observe 
the proceeding. 

‘ These tickets are certificates of a day’s work 
being done. The men carry them to the clerk 
yonder, who pays them what they absolutely 
want for present subsistence, and places the rest 
to their account in the emigration list. They are 


126 


IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 


getting on in the world, I assure you, by this 
plan; and seem in a fair way to emigrate in a 
better condition than our poor countrymen 
usually do.’ 

‘ What, while earning only tenpence a day? ’ 

‘Yes; you must remember that if these 
wages are less than half what would be earned 
in England at the same employment, the people 
may live for as much less in proportion. A man 
who earns six shillings a week here is as well off, 
in his own opinion, as one who gains fifteen 
shillings a week in England. An English 
laborer would find it impossible to leave any 
part of his daily tenpence in his landlord’s hands ; 
but a friend of mine, who gave no more, was paid 
4000?. of arrears by his tenants, when he set 
them to work on improvements of great magni- 
tude on his estate. My project of enabling 
these people to emigrate, seems nothing in 
comparison to his.’ 

‘ What a pity it seems, Tracey, that our 
people should emigrate when there is so much 
to be done at home, — so many bogs to be 
drained, — so much fertile land to be tilled! But 
so it must be. We want capital; and though 
our capital is growing, we must limit the demands 


IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 127 

upon it before we can materially improve the 
condition of the people/ 

{ True/ replied Mr. Tracey ; 6 some of them 
will do better abroad till we have learned to 
manage our resources more wisely. We may 
talk as we please about the fertility of our waste 
lands, and the facilities for draining our bogs; 
these cannot be made productive without capital ; 
and we have not capital to spare for such pur- 
poses, while the present enormous demands are 
made upon the subsistence fund by our over- 
grown population/ 

£ If the deficiency be of capital, Tracey, what 
think you of those who carry Irish capital 
abroad ? What think you of the patriotism of 
absentees ? if one who has till now been an 
absentee will tolerate such a question/ 

‘ I think that an Irishman who loves his 
country will do all he can to promote the. in- 
crease and judicious application of capital in it : 
but this has nothing to do with the common 
question of absenteeism. Our absentees do not 
usually apply capital, but spend revenue in other 
countries ; which alters the question entirely ; it 
being perfectly immaterial in point of wealth 
to Ireland whether her landlords are supported 
by Irish produce abroad or at home/ 


128 IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 

1 Av ; I have heard that this was your plea 
for living abroad so long.’ 

c It was an opinion which satisfied my con- 
science in remaining abroad when I was driven 
there by evils which are now remedied. If I had 
not been satisfied that it is an error to suppose 
that a country is impoverished in proportion to 
the absence of its landlords, I would have borne 
my. exclusion from all offices but that of sub- 
sheriff, and the obloquy with which our Protes- 
tant gentry are apt to treat us true Irish, rather 
than budge a step to the injury of the people. 
I am speaking now of a landlord’s economical, 
not his moral influence, you are aware.’ 

‘ Certainly. The moral effect of a landlord’s 
residence depends much on the man and his 
way of life. If he is a profligate, or brings 
down profligates in his service into the country, 
he may do a world of harm ; and the contrary, 
if he and his household bear an opposite char- 
acter. A really good agent, too, may exert as 
favorable a moral influence as a good landlord ; 
and as for what a bad one can do, we need but 
look round and see what are the results of 
Flanagan’s administration. But, in an econ- 
omical point of view, do you suppose that the 


IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 129 

entire difference between doing harm and no 
harm by absenteeism consists in applying capital 
and spending revenue ? ’ 

‘ I do, as regards the whole of Ireland. See 
now. My agent collects my rents : shall we say 
in raw produce, or in money ? ’ 

‘Both; raw produce first.’ 

4 Very well. He sends me over to Paris five 
hundred head of cattle, which I exchange for 
French produce to be consumed within the year 
Now, how does it matter to Ireland whether l 
exchange these cattle for something of the same 
value to be consumed there, or whether I con- 
sume the cattle at Paris?’ 

‘ It cannot matter at all. If Ireland kept the 
cattle, she would have the same amount less of 
something else.’ 

‘ To be sure. I am still living on Irish pro 
duce, whether at Paris or in this glen. With a 
money-rent the case would be precisely the same. 
If I remained at home, Ireland would have more 
money and less of the money’s worth.’ 

4 That is clear enough. But how would it be 
if you fixed your revenue, instead of immediate- 
ly consuming it? ' 

‘If I consumed only a part of my revenue and 
I 


130 IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 

employed the rest in setting up a manufactory. 
Ireland would remain in the same state as if I 
consumed the whole; and in a worse state than 
if I set up my manufactory within her borders. 
If I withdrew any of my capital from her to sup- 
port my manufactory abroad, I should inflict on 
her a positive injury. But absentees never do 
this. When Irishmen invest capital abroad, it 
is as emigrants, not as absentees . 5 

c Suppose, instead of setting up a manufactory, 
you built a mansion in France, how would the 
case stand then ? 5 * 

4 The mansion would be Irish property ; 
erected with Irish funds, consumed (as long as 
it deteriorated) by an Irishman, and the remain- 
ing value to revert to Ireland at my death or at 
its sale . 5 

* But supposing it to be let to French tenants 
forever .* 

4 Then it would be an investment of capital, 
and cease to bear any relation to the question of 
absenteeism . 5 

4 True, true. But it seems to me that there 
must be a vast difference between using your 
resources to put in motion Irish and French 
industry. Have not the French been gainers all 


IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 131 

this time, and the Irish losers, by your having 
employed French workmen? Might not the 
profits of Irish work-people in your service have 
become substantial capital by this time, if you 
had staid at home ? ’ 

‘ Ireland has been as busy working for me all 
this time, Rosso, as if 1 had staid at home : not 
these my near neighbors, perhaps, but laborers 
of one kind or another. My revenue must first 
be spent here before my agent can get it for me 
to spend any where else. The only difference 
is that I myself might spend it in Irish bread, 
fish, milk, linen, &tc.,. while he lays out exactly 
its equivalent in purchasing that which is to 
enable me to buy French bread, milk, fish, 
and linens ; whether that which he purchases be 
labor and raw material united in a manufacture, 
or raw material which is the result of labor. 5 

c But the plain question is, after all, Tracey, 
whether you would have employed French labor 
if you had lived at home ? 5 

‘ I should not, except in as far as I live on 
French wines; of which you know I am very 
fond; but at the same time, I supersede a portion 
of French labor by the produce of Irish labor 
which I introduce into France. Neither should 


132 IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 

I have employed more Irish labor at home than 
when abroad. The amount of Irish commodities 
which I should have consumed at home is ex- 
changed against French commodities; that is all. 
It seems to me, Rosso, that since you feel per- 
plexed about this, you must have the idea that 
this exchange is not an exchange of equivalents. 
Is not that what you are thinking of ? You 
should remember that an exchange which is ad- 
vantageous to individuals on account of conven- 
ience, &c. is a mere exchange of equivalents as 
regards the country at large. The baker gains 
by exchanging some of his loaves for broad-cloth ; 
but the same amount of wealth remains in the 
country as before. In like manner, it is a con- 
venience to me to have my rents in money 
rather than cattle ; but it is the same thing to 
Ireland whether I receive my revenue in the 
one form or the other. ’ 

4 True : give me a case. Show me the effect 
of sending your revenue to Paris through Eng- 
land. ’ 

‘ Very well. Suppose the state of the ex- 
change, or any thing else, renders it undesirable 
to send me money; my agent sends cattle into 
England to be exchanged for something more 


IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 


133 


convenient to me. Well; Ireland is minus my 
year’s consumption, just as if I had been there 
during the year. The cattle is exchanged for 
Sheffield and Manchester goods, which are to be 
sent to F ranee. Thus England is in the same 
state as if I had remained in London, using 
nothing but hardware and cottons. France gains 
nothing by me, for I consume precisely as much 
food, clothing and habitation as I give of knives 
and ginghams. And the case would be the same 
if my rents travelled round the world.’ 

4 Is the outcry against absentees, then, so very 
senseless V 

4 As far as regards the total wealth of a 
country, I certainly conceive it to be so, much 
as the residence of any one landlord may affect 
the locality where his capital resides. I may 
create a good deal of bustle about me by settling 
down here ; but some other class of producers 
will have less to do than when I was abroad. 
Ireland is neither richer nor poorer for my re- 
turn.’ 

4 Yet it is a common remark that bare fields 
and broken fences on the one hand, or thriving 
estates on the other, show at a glance whether 
the proprietor is an absentee or a resident.’ 


134 IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 

‘Ay: but we forget that the industry of the 
resident proprietor’s tenantry may be called into 
action by the wants of the absentee. Their pro- 
duce finds its way to him through the market in 
the shape of bills of exchange which represent 
his revenue.’ 

‘ Nothing can be clearer. I see it all now. 
The coin which the tenants pay purchases pro* 
duce which is sent to the foreign country; and the 
bills of exchange drawn by the exporter, and made 
playable for the Irish produce exported, are the 
form in which the absentee receives his rent: so 
that Ireland sells, one kind of produce to the 
foreign market instead of an equal value of other 
kinds to the absentee.’ 

‘Exactly so. Now, how can it signify to 
Ireland where he eats his beef, as long as he 
derives it from his own country ? ’ 

‘It cannot signify to the country at large, cer- 
tainly. You have confirmed me in the opinion 
I have long held of the injustice of an absentee 
tax, for which so many are clamoring.’ 

‘To be applied for the benefit of the poor, I 
suppose. It seems to me the last thing in the 
world likely to do any real good. You see the 
whole revenue of an absentee is first spent at 


IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 135 

home. Any part withdrawn as a tax would be 
so much diverted from its natural course, for the 
sake of being arbitrarily applied. It would only 
affect the distribution of capital, not its amount ; 
and we all know that a natural distribution is 
more favorable to the welfare of a country than 
an arbitrary one. — As a stigma upon absen- 
tees, it would be unjust in a high degree ; and as 
throwing an unequal burden upon them, intoler- 
ably oppressive.’ 

c One pretence * is that absentees contribute 
nothing to our domestic taxes : but the object- 
ors forget what taxes he is liable to as a proprie- 
tor of land and houses, and what he pays on 
the materials of manufactures.’ 

. ‘ And if he ought to be still further liable, 
Rosso, let it be done in any way but that which 
assumes to repair an injury done to his country 
by his leaving her. There are many ways of 
levying a tax on income or property which would 
affect him ; and thus let him pay, if his own 
government is jealous of his assisting to support 
that of France or of Italy ; and if, moreover, it 
overlooks the stimulus given by the . absentee 
to exchanges and manufactures. Suppose an 
absentee should ere long be honored as a bene- 
factor to his country.’ 


136 IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 

‘ In Scotland the estates of absentees are 
considered in a better condition on the whole 
than those of residents ; and the reverse is not 
always the case here, Tracey.’ 

‘ Well : we will not decide the question any 
further than to agree that the prosperity of an 
estate depends mainly on the qualities of the 
manager, be he landlord or be he agent. As 
for the prevailing prejudice respecting absen- 
teeism, it may be trusted to go straight forward 
into the gulf of oblivion, if we all help to point 
out its way thither. Pity it is too late to atone 
to a host of absentees for the undeserved censure 
which has been cast upon them.’ 

‘If undeserved: but, Tracey, do you suppose 
they have most of them thought much about 
their country’s good before they left her ? ’ 

‘ God forbid that we should judge their mo- 
tives!’ said Tracey. ‘I answer for none but 
myself. I did thoroughly convince myself be- 
fore I set out that I should not injure my coun- 
try by going. Many, I doubt not, have been 
driven away by political wrongs, either directly 
inflicted on themselves, or inciting the peasantry 
to hostility against their landlords ; and many 
more, probably, have hastened abroad to get out 


IRISH RESPONSIBILITY. 137 

of sight of misery which they could not relieve. 
If I were to venture on judging my neighbor at 
all in these instances, it should not be the ab- 
sentee, but the government ; whose evil policy 
prompted to absenteeism.’ 

‘ Well : instead of judging, let us anticipate, 
since the past cannot be helped, and the future 
may be bettered.’ 

1 That is what I try to comfort myself with^ 
saying,’ replied Tracey, looking round with a 
sigh on his half-ruined estate and ragged corps 
of laborers. ‘ Let others try, like me, to re- 
member the past only as a warning ; and let 
government do with the country as I am doing 
with my little corner of it. Let capital be well 
secured and well husbanded, in order that it 
may circulate with more confidence and become 
more abundant. Let the people be more wise- 
ly distributed over the surface, and let their sur- 
plus be carried where labor is wanted. Let all 
usurpers of unjust authority, all who make the 
law odious, and justice a mockery, be displaced 
from office as I have displaced Flanagan. 
Above all, let education be abundantly given, so 
as to afford us hope that the people may in time 
understand that their interests are cared for; 


138 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


and that men who differ in religion and politics 
may find it possible to live in fellowship, like 
ourselves, friend Rosso.’ 

‘Like ourselves, friend Tracey,’ replied Ros- 
so ; ‘ and then farewell to all Catholic oaths to 
wade knee-deep in Orange blood, and to all 
Protestant likenings of the pope and his flock to 
the devil and his crew.’ 


CHAPTER VII. 

IRISH IMPOLICY 

The friendship between these gentlemen 
proved of no little advantage to their neighbors 
when an occasion presently arose for their co- 
operation for the good of their parish. 

News reached Mr. Rosso’s ears one day that 
a strange gentleman was on a visit at the house 
of a Protestant in the next parish, who had a 
field or two in the glen, just advertised for sale. 
It was immediately conjectured that the gentle- 
man came as a purchaser of this land ; but it 
was not till it had been repeatedly surveyed and 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


139 


measured that any gossip could ascertain what 
he meant to do with it. In due time, however, 
it transpired that the stranger was a builder, and 
that he was making his estimates for erecting a 
# church. 

Mr. Rosso’s measures were immediately ta- 
ken. He sent to the proper quarters memorials 
of the facts that he and his household, consisting 
of fifteen persons, were the only Protestants in the 
parish ; that they stood in no need of a church, 
that of the neighboring parish being nearer their 
dwelling than the field on which the new one 
was proposed to be erected ; and that eccle- 
siastical burdens already weighed so heavily on 
a miserably poor population, that it would he 
absolute ruin to many to tax them further. More- 
over, Mr. Rosso sent a pressing invitation to Mr. 
Orme, the incumbent, to take up his abode with 
him for a week. Mr. Orme had not appeared 
in his parish for some years ; and there was 
hope that what he might now see would influ- 
ence him to avert the dreadful infliction of a 
church where there were no church-goers. Mr. 
Tracey prepared F ather Glenny for friendly in- 
tercourse with his heretic brother pastor ; and all 
parties agreed that, if Mr. Orme should prove' 


140 


RISH IMPOLICY. 


the reasonable and kind-hearted man he was 
reported to be, a further appeal should be made 
to him on the subject of his tithes. 

Mr. Orme came, and, before he went to rest 
the first night, was convinced by ocular demon- 
stration that his host’s dining-room could con- 
veniently contain the entire Protestant population 
of the parish. The next morning, he was seen 
standing with the priest on the ridge which over- 
looked the glen, and heard to sigh over its as- 
pect of desolation. 

‘ Whereabouts would you have your church 
erected ? ’ quietly asked Father Glenny. 

‘ Indeed, I know little more than you , 5 re- 
plied the clergyman. ‘ I have not been consult- 
ed upon the matter in regular form, and had no 
idea it had gone so far. I fear it is a job, sir.’ 

‘The architect happens to have his hands 
empty of contracts at present, perhaps,’ observ- 
ed the priest : ‘ and the owner of the field may 
hope to gain a higher price for his land through 
the agency of your church than direct from our 
poor neighbors. But look round you, and find 
out, if you can, where the parish is to obtain 
means to answer such a call upon its resources.’ 

‘ It is indeed a different place from what I 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


141 


once remember it, though it had never much 
wealth to boast of. When I occasionally lodg- 
ed here, it was in farmhouses where there was 
good food and sufficient clothing, and sometimes 
a pretty dower for the daughters on their mar- 
riage day. I see no such places now. These 
hovels are but the ruins of them.’ 

‘ Too true; and we preserve but the ruins of 
some of our former practices. Dowries are 
rare among the brides of this parish. Our old 
folks are less hopeful, our young ones less 
patient than formerly ; and marriages are there- 
fore rashly entered into without a provision of 
any kind.’ 

‘I am sorry, very sorry for it, sir. There is 
more benefit than is at once apparent in the long 
preparation of the marriage provision, f have 
heard much ridicule of the old Scotch practice 
of accumulating a stock of linen for bed and 
board, which could scarcely be consumed in a 
lifetime ; but there was much good in it. •‘Besides 
the benefit to the parties concerned, — the industry 
and forethought it obliged them to exercise, and 
the resources it put in their power, — the custom 
proved an important check upon population. 
Young people had to wait two or three years 


142 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


before they married ; and where this was uni- 
versally the case, it was thought no hardship. 
Those who thus began their married life were 
never known to become paupers. But, sir, from 
the aspect of this place, I should imagine your 
entire flock to be paupers, except a tenant or 
two yonder.’ 

4 The land is exhausted, Mr. Orme, and the 
people are therefore poverty-stricken and reck- 
less. There is little encouragement to prudence 
while there are superiors to keep a rapacious 
hand in every man’s pocket, and appropriate 
whatever he may chance to gain beyond that 
which will support life. We know such to be 
the results in Turkey, Mr Orme, and in other 
seats of despotic government, and why not here ? ’ 

4 Whom do you point at as these superiors? ’ 
inquired Mr. Orme. 4 Not either of the land- 
lords, surely. And you are free, moreover, from 
the locust-like devastation of the poor-law sys- 
tem.’ « 

‘True: but what pauperism leaves, the 
middlemen consume ; and what the middlemen 
leave, the tithe-proctor consumes. Yonder field, 
sir, lias been let out of tillage because the tithe 
devoured the profits. That row of hovels is 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 143 

deserted because your proctor seized all that 
rendered them habitable. Their inmates are 
gone where they may live by plunder, since the 
law of this district is to plunder or be plun- 
dered. 5 

6 Plundered 1 5 exclaimed Mr. Orme. 4 That 
is a somewhat harsh term, sir.’ 

4 Is it an unjust one, Mr. Orme? — that* is the 
question. What do these poor people gain in 
return for the portion of their earnings wrench- 
ed from them in the form of tithes? What does 
the Protestant church do for these Catholic tithe- 
payers ? ’ 

Mr. Orme could only reply that the Protes- 
tant church was established for the good of the 
people at large; and that it was the people’s own 
fault if they would not take advantage of the 
ministrations of its clergy. He was ready, 
for one, to do duty as soon as his flock would 
listen to him ; and, in the meanwhile, he conceiv- 
ed that he was causing no wrong to any man by 
receiving the means of subsistence decreed him 
by law. He would not defend the mode of pay- 
ment by tithe in any country, or under any cir- 
cumstances. He saw its evils as an impediment 
to improvements in agriculture, and as an une- 


144 IRISH IMPOLICY 

qual tax, falling the most heavily on the most in- 
dustrious cultivator ; but while payment by tithe 
was the method appointed hy law, he could not 
allow that its exaction deserved the name of 
plunder.’ 

£ With or without law,’ observed Father 
Glenny, ‘ it appears to me plunder to force pay- 
ment for offered services, which are not only 
declined but regarded with dislike or contempt : 
in which light we know the services of the Pro- 
testant clergy are justly or unjustly regarded by 
our Catholic population. If you, sir, were a 
pastor in the Vaudois, and your flock under the 
dominion of some Catholic power, could you see 
one deprived of his only blanket, and another of 
his last loaf of bread, and a third of his sole 
portion of his field-crop, for the maintenance of 
a clergy whom they never saw, and not call it 
plunder, let the law stand as it might? And 
could you acknowledge your people to be justly 
charged with disaffection if they looked with an 
unfriendly eye on the priestly agent of this rob- 
bery, and muttered deep curses against his em- 
ployer ? ’ 

No answer being returned, the priest invited 
his companion into certain of the dwellings near. 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


145 

‘To be looked on with an unfriendly eye ? ? 
asked Mr. Orme, smiling bitterly. ‘ To be 
greeted with deep curses ? 5 

4 By no means, sir. I question whether an 
individual whom we shall meet will know the 
pastor of his parish. If you keep your own 
counsel, you may see things as they are. If you 
have courage, you may hear by what means 
your 400/. a-year has been levied. ’ 

‘ I will ; on condition that you will allow me 
to speak as plainly to you on your relation to 
the people as you have spoken on mine. Will 
you bear with my rebukes in your turn ? * 

‘I will, ’ replied the priest, ‘when I have 
finished my say. Do you conceive it just and' 
merciful to Ireland that she should support four 
archbishoprics, and eighteen bishoprics, the total 
number of her Protestants being smaller than in 
certain single dioceses in England ? 5 

‘ Certainly not. I have long advocated a re- 
duction of our establishment. I would*go so far 
as to make the four archbishoprics maintain the 
whole, which would strike off at once 100,000/. 
a-year from the revenues of the church. I 
would go farther, sir; and this will, I hope, 
prove to you that I am not one of the locust- 

tv 


146 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


tribe to which you would assign me. I would 
commute the tithes for lands, in order to avoid 
the individual oppression of which the people 
complain. ’ 

F ather Glenny observed that he did not won- 
der the plan of commutation was rising into 
favor now that it was found impossible to collect 
tithes in the old method : but the nation might 
be found as impracticable respecting one mode 
of paying tithes as another ; and he wished to 
know what was to be done in case of its declin- 
ing the commutation proposed. 

‘ The plan must be enforced,’ replied Mr. 
Orme ; * and, moreover, the arrears must be re- 
covered by the strong arm of the law ' 

‘ Whence can they be obtained ? ’ asked Fa- 
ther Glenny. ‘ How are you to compel .the 
cottier who consumes his scanty crop, season by 
season, to pay the collected tithe-dues of seve- 
ral ? I say nothing of the danger to yourselves 
and your families, — danger to life and property, 
— of enforcing your claim. I say nothing now 
of the violence which must attend upon such an 
effort. I merely ask whence the arrears are to 
be obtained in an impoverished country ? ’ 

‘ They must be converted into a government 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


147 


debt. By this means, the nation will learn the 
real disposition of the government towards its 
own ecclesiastical servants and those who refuse 
them their lawful rights. By this means, the 
consent of my brethren at large to a commuta- 
tion of tithes will be most easily obtained. Yes ; 
the arrears of tithe must be converted into a 
government debt . 5 

‘ By this means,’ replied the priest, 4 the 
burden will be imposed where it is not due. 
Our cottiers cannot pay ; and you wxwld there- 
fore have their richer neighbors discharge their 
arrears : — a vicarious obligation of a new kind I 
— No ! this will scarcely be tolerated, believe me. 
You will carry neither of your points ; — neith- 
er the payment of arrears nor commutation ; the 
people having discovered a method of evading 
the payment entirely. Better waive your claim 
altogether, Mr. Orme, while there is yet time to 
do it with a good grace, or you will have the 
same trouble about tithe cattle that multitudes of 
your brethren have. You will pound them in 
vain ; attempt in vain to sell them; carry them 
over the sea in vain; and find too late that all 
you have gained is the name of oppressor. ’ 

Mr. Orme muttered that it was a very hard 


f'ase. 


148 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


‘Who can help it?’ inquired the priest. ‘ If 
the subsistence-fund was not ample enough to 
afford tithes when due, in a poor district like this, 
how should it discharge an accumulation of debt? 
Here we have many more people, very little 
more capital, less industry, less forethought than 
when the debt was contracted. All the constit- 
uents of the subsistence-fund have become more 
or less debased, and yet you would tax it more 
heavily than ever. You must fail. in your object, 
sir . 5 

‘ I will learn the truth for myself, instead of 
taking the assertion of any man whatever , 5 re- 
plied Mr. Orme, moving onwards towards a clus- 
ter of dwellings, into which he was introduced 
as a friend by the priest, and not therefore sus- 
pected of being the clergyman of the parish. 
All that he heard, told the same tale ; all that 
he saw confirmed it. The new church was 
spoken of in terms of execration, in which the 
parson and the proctor largely shared. One 
woman told how the wealthy churchman was 
living far away from his cure, subsisting his dogs 
on the food snatched from her children’s mouths , 
and another showed where her son lay buried, 
having been smitten with fever in consequence 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 149 

of his useless over-toii to satisfy the demands of 
the rapacious agents of the law. Others point- 
ed with moody mirth to their desolated dwellings, 
as affording a sign that the legal spoilers were 
not far off. Others observed that there would 
be few conversions to the Protestant faith in the 
parish, while the clergy snatched the loaves and 
fishes from the multitude instead of bestowing 
them. Yet more exhibited their uncomplaining 
poverty in their looks and dress rather than by 
words ; and only gazed round their little tene- 
ments in perplexity at the mention of the dues 
that must he paid. 

Mr. Orme had hitherto been a prejudiced 
man on the subject of his own rights ; but he 
was open to conviction, and at length roused to 
ascertain the truth of his own case. He spent 
the whole of this day and the next in rendering 
himself acquainted with the condition of the 
people, and used no reserve with Father Glen- 
ny respecting the impression made upon his 
mind. Towards the conclusion of his investiga- 
tion, he stopped short, and ended a long pause 
by exclaiming, 

1 1 do not see how it is to be done ! Setting 
aside all considerations of law and justice, I do 


150 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


not see the possibility of obtaining my dues from 
these poor people.’ 

‘Nor I, Mr. Orme. What follows this con 
viction in your mind ? ’ 

‘ I scarcely know yet, further than that I shall 
give up my claim altogether, if, after a little 
consideration, I view the matter as I do now.’ 

‘ Then you will prove, as I expected, a faithful 
servant of your church ; more heedful to her hon- 
or and usefulness than to your own peculiar gain.’ 

‘ Reserve your praise, l advise you, sir, till 
you have heard me out. By giving up my claim 
altogether, I mean only while the people are in 
their present state. When the subsistence-fund 
improves, when industry and forethought thrive, 
the people will be again in a condition to pay 
tithe, and will perhaps,’ he added, smiling, * be 
my own flock, in allegiance as well as by desti- 
nation, if Mr. Rosso and you continue your care 
of the school.’ 

‘ I will try the venture with you,’ replied the 
priest, smiling also. ‘ Let our respective faiths 
be tried by the increasing light of the people. 
If this is also your wish, you will dispossess my 
flock of the prejudices they entertain against 
your church on account of her oppressions.’ 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


151 


‘ This reminds me,’ said Mr. Orme, ‘ of what 
1 have to say against your relations with your 
flock. How do you defend your own emolu- 
ments while you complain of mine?’ 

Father Glenny, astonished, began to explain 
that he derived from his flock little more than 
would barely supply his wants. A hard couch, 
a frugal board, homely clothing, left him but a 
pittance with which to relieve the most pressing 
distress he encountered. 

‘ Of all this I am aware,’ replied Mr. Orme. 

4 In these respects your lot resembles that of too 
many faithful servants of our church, who give 
their most strenuous exertions for a very poor 
worldly return. What I now complain of is not 
the amount of your recompense, but the mode 
iu which it is levied. How can you in one 
hour lament those evils of the people’s state 
which arise from the disproportion of their num- 
bers to their means of subsistence, and in the 
next, consent to receive your emoluments in a 
way which exposes you to the charge of encour- 
aging an increase of numbers?’ 

‘The charge is false,’ replied the priest. 

‘ My brethren and I do not make marriages, 
though we celebrate them with a view to the 


152 IRISH IMPOLICY. 

glory of God and the fulfilment of his holy com- 
mandment. We are supposed to know nothing 
of an intended marriage till requested to solem- 
nize it ; and to refuse to discharge our office, with 
all the customs appertaining to it, would be to 
encourage sin.’ 

‘1 lay no charge to the door of any one man 
among you,’ replied Mr. Orme. ‘ I only observe 
that by receiving your emoluments chiefly in 
the shape of marriage fees, you expose your- 
selves to the suspicion of encouraging marriage : 
a suspicion which is much strengthened by your 
emphatic approbation of such connexions as often 
as you solemnize them, and by your known tre- 
mendous power over the minds of your flocks, 
obtained through the practice of confession. 
Hear me out, my good sir. I am not about to 
enter upon any controversy respecting the diver- 
sities in our discharge of the clerical office. I 
would only recommend to you, if you wish to 
place yourselves above the suspicion I have 
alluded to, to Separate your worldly interest al- 
together from this particular rite. Appoint any 
other way you may choose of receiving your 
dues; but if you really believe your people to 
be prone to form imprudent marriages, if you 


IRISH IMP( tICY. 


153 


are actually convinced that over-population is a 
principal cause of their distresses, remove from 
yourselves all temptation to connive at impru- 
dent marriages and to sanction over-population : 
remove from the minds of your people all idea 
that they are gratifying and rewarding you by 
asking you to marry them ; cancel every relation 
between the wedding propensities of the young 
and the welfare of their priest’s purse. ’ 

‘ I agree with you, ’ replied the priest, ‘ that 
there is much that is objectionable in the modes 
in which we each receive our emoluments. You 
condemn tithes, and I condemn marriage fees, 
given as they are given now by the guests as 
well as the parties. The fee thus exposes us to 
the temptation and suspicion you speak of, 
without having the beneficial effect of obliging 
the young couple to save before they marry, 
like the Scotch ancient custom respecting house 
linen. It is for the state to remedy this evil 
by providing otherwise for us.’ 

Mr. Orme thought this was jumping to a con- 
clusion in a terrible hurry. Why should not the 
same amount be given in a more judicious man- 
ner by the flock, instead of involving government 
at all in the matter? This point was argued till 


154 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


both gentlemen decided that the only method 
by which the permanent prosperity of the people 
could be secured was the general diffusion of such 
knowledge as would make them judges of their 
own condition ana controllers of their own desti- 
nies. The Protestant and Catholic perfectly 
agreed that to further the grand object of edu- 
cation, it was worth while to concede certain 
points which elsewhere each would have strenu- 
ously insisted on ; and that, should an impartial 
plan of general education be framed by govern- 
ment, it would be the duty, and would probably 
appear to be the disposition of all but a small mi- 
nority of the factious and bigoted, to render hear- 
ty thanks for the boon, and all possible assistance 
towards the efficient working of the scheme. 

4 If this should be done . speedily,’ observed 
the Protestant, 4 1 may live to be called hither 
to receive my dues in recompense of the servi- 
ces which I would fain render now, if the people 
would but receive them.’ 

4 If this be done speedily,’ observed the Ca- 
tholic, 4 my brethren and I may live to see our- 
selves and our flocks no longer looked down up- 
on by our scornful neighbors of your church as 
constituting a degraded caste. The law has at 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


155 


length emancipated us from our civil disabili- 
ties : it remains for education to lift us out of 
that worse and equally undeserved degradation 
whence the law cannot raise us up.’ 

The result of Mr. Orme’s survey of his par- 
ish, — made known after long deliberation on his 
part, much consultation with Mr. Rosso, and 
intimate intercourse with the people, — was, that 
he relinquished altogether his claim for tithes for 
the present, on the ground that it was impossi- 
ble for the people to pay them. 

All the endeavors of Father Glenuy and his 
enlightened neighbors to make the people grate- 
ful for this concession were in vain. When they 
heard of the changes made by Mr. Orme’s fam- 
ily in their way of living, of the luxuries they 
surrendered, and the frugality they were oblig- 
ed to exercise, the only remark was that these 
things had been fraudulently enjoyed thus long, 
as the nominal reward of services which had nev- 
er been rendered. When reminded that the 
remission was an act of free grace on Mr. Orme’s 
part, they replied ‘ Thank him for nothing. He 
would never have got another pound of tithe in 
this parish, as he probably knows. He gives up 
only what he could not touch.’ 


156 


IRISH IMPOLICY. 


When he rode away, ready to bestow kind 
looks on every side, he only met dubious smiles 
from those who gazed alter him from field and 
cabin, and who observed to one another that it 
was a great blessing to have one priest for a 
guide, but rather too much to have another and 
a strange one on their backs. To wish him well 
away was the utmost extent of their courtesy. 

From another quarter, however, Mr. Orme 
had thanks. The three gentlemen whom he 
left behind considered themselves beholden to 
him for the absence of the tumultuous excitement 
which elsewhere attended the useless endeavor 
to exact tithes. This parish was saved all op- 
position of forces between the ‘ loyal ’ and the 
c disaffected ; ’ that is, between the oppressors 
and the oppressed. There was no need to cry 
out for the Insurrection Act on the one hand, or 
to threaten or perpetrate mischief on the other. 
The architect was seen no more. The field 
which he had surveyed bore oats instead of a 
church, — a happy circumstance ; since the peo- 
ple were much in want of food for the body, 
while they had enough of that for the spirit, and 
of the kind which they preferred, in Mr. Tra- 
cey’s chapel. 


IRISH FATALITY. 


157 


CHAPTER VIII. 

IRISH FATALITY. 

Dora was long in gaol before she could form 
an idea what was to become of her. The place 
was crowded, in consequence of the late disor- 
ders in her native district ; and her child pined 
for want of the bracing air to which it had been 
accustomed from its birth. Night after night 
when she was kept awake by its wailing, day af- 
ter day when she marked how its little limbs 
wasted, did the mother sigh to be one of those 
whose lot she had till now thought very wretch- 
ed. She would fain have been among such as 
were driven from the glen to seek a subsistence 
in the towns, begging by day, and nestling 
wherever they could find a hole by night. When 
she was brought into the town, she met several 
of these, whose faces she well knew, changed as 
they were from the cheerful or thoughtful coun- 
tenances of dwellers in a home to the listless or 
bold expression which characterises vagrants. 
She now envied them their freedom, however 
mournful their condition in other respects. They 
might carry their babes abroad into the free air, 


158 IRISH FATALITY. 

and if too much crowded in their noisome abodes, 
sleep under the open sky. They might meet 
their proscribed connexions, if such they had, 
without other restraints than their own prudence 
imposed : while she must see her infant languish 
for want of that which nature designed for all ; 
and live on from day to day without hope of be- 
holding husband or father, or of knowing what 
had become of them. 

The first relief she found was in forming a 
desperate resolution respecting her infant. She 
had passed a long, wakeful night in such a state 
of distress as even she had seldom known. The 
heat was stifling, from many sleepers being col- 
lected within a small space. Her child would 
not lie still on her bosom one moment. Some- 
times screaming, sometimes wailing, its signs of 
suffering wrung its mother’s heart. She was 
first irritated and then terrified by the complaints 
of all who were disturbed like herself, and who 
seemed to think it her fault that the child would 
not rest. Hour after hour was she kept on the 
stretch, watching for tokens of fatigue from the 
child, or of mercy from her neighbors ; but the 
heat increased, fresh cries wore her nerves, and 
new threats of getting rid of the nuisance made 


IRISH FATALITY. 


i no 


her feel as if every pulse in her body would 
burst. She threw herself down on her pallet, 
on the side of which she had been sitting, and 
closed her eyes and ears, muttering — 

4 God help me ! and take me and my child 
where we may sleep in peace and no waking ! 
My mind is just going as it did one night before ; 
and let it go, if my child was but safe with its 
father. Little would it matter then what be- 
came of me ; for Dan and I shall never meet 
more. O ! hush, my child ! hush ! I could 
part with you forever if I could only ease you 
from wailing, and from this sore strife. There 
is a curse upon me, and upon you while you 
live on my bosom. You never caress me, my 
child ; you struggle out of my grasp ! Other 
babes clasp their mothers, but you push me away. 
Well you may ! God gave you free and strong 
limbs and an easy breath; and ’t is I that have 
laid a withering curse on your flesh, and a 
heavy load on your little breast. ’Tis 1 that 
have dropped poison in your veins. You shall 
go, my child. I will bear to be haunted all my 
days with your screams and your throes ; l will 
bear to lie down without you, and wake feeling 
for you in vain; I will bear to fold my empty 


1G0 IRISH FATALITY. 

arms when I see babes laughing in the sunshine, 
and wonder whether you are playing on the sod 
or lying beneath it, — if I can free you from my 
curse, and trust your little life to those who can 
nourish it better than I. 0 hush ! my child. 
Bear with me this last night ! If I could but see 
you but once more quiet, if you would only once 
lay your little hand on my lips, if you would but 
look at me ! — Again, again, again ! your life will 
be spent, my child ; you will die before I can 
save you ! — 0, neighbors ! do ye think it’s my 
will that my child should suffer this way ? Do 
you think its cries do not pierce my ears more 
than yours ? Is it worse for you to lose a night’s 
sleep than for me to be parting with my child 
forever ? * 

The softened grumblers inquired the meaning 
of her words, and praised her for intending to 
send the babe out of the gaol immediately, only 
complaining that it had not been done long be- 
fore. All were ready to help her with sugges- 
tions how to dispose of it ; none of which sugges- 
tions, however, satisfied her. 

All difficulty on this head was removed the 
next day by the appearance of Father Glenny. 
who came, as he had done once or twice before, to 


IRISH FATALITY. 


161 


administer to the religious wants of several of his 
flock who had found their way hither. He was 
shocked at the change in Dora since he last saw 
her, and thought the child dying. He engaged 
at once to have it carried out of the prison and 
conveyed into safe hands. Whose hands these 
were, he could not disclose, as Sullivan’s retreat 
was made known to him under the seal of con- 
fession, and the circumstances must not be re- 
vealed even to the old man’s only child. Of 
Dan the priest had heard nothing. No one had 
seen or heard of him since some days previous 
to Dora’s capture. 

The only thing which struck the priest as re- 
markable in Dora’s state of mind was her utter 
indifference respecting her approaching trial. 
It seemed never to occur to her ; and when she 
was reminded of it, it appeared to be regarded 
as a slight and necessary form preliminary to her 
going away for ever. She never took in the 
idea of acquittal, or remembered that she had a 
part to perform, and that she was one of two con- 
tending parties, with either of whom success 
might rest. She made no complaints of being a 
passive instrument in the hand of power, or of 
any hardship in the treatment she had experi- 
L 


1 62 


IRISH FATALITY. 


enced or was still to bear. She made no pre- 
paration of her thoughts for defence or for endu- 
rance. She was utterly unmindful of what w r as 
coming, taking for granted that she should never 
more see her husband, and beyond this, having 
no thought where she was to spend her days, or 
how she was to end them. This state appear- 
ed so unnatural, that the priest, after enlarging 
in vain on her accusation and means of defence, 
ventured to rouse her by mentioning a report he 
had heard that an attempt was to be made to 
rescue her and her companions by breaking the 
gaol before the trials, or by attacking the guard 
which should conduct some to the gibbet and 
others to the coast, when their doom was to be 
enforced. For a moment a gleam of hope kin- 
dled in her eyes ; but she immediately observed 
that if the report was abroad, the magistrates 
were no doubt on their guard, and the whiteboys 
would ascertain the attempt to be vain before 
they committed themselves. After this, how- 
ever, it. was observed that she could recollect 
nothing. She had nothing to confess, nothing 
to ask for, no messages to leave, no desires to 
express. With a dull, drowsy expression of 
countenance, she looked at the priest when he 


IRISH FATALITY. 163 

rose to leave her, and seemed to ask why he 
stood waiting. 

‘ Your child, my daughter,’ said he, extend- 
ing his arms to receive the babe. 

With a start and a flushed cheek, she hasten- 
ed to wrap it in the only garment of her own 
which she could spare to add to its scanty cloth- 
ing. After a cold kiss, she placed it in the arms 
of its new guardian, saying with a stiff smile, 

4 I wonder whether there are any more such 
mothers as I am ! I forget all about my child’s 
coming to me, and I don’t think I care much 
about its going from me. I’m past caring about 
any thing at times.’ 

4 And at other times, daughter ’ 

4 Hush, hush, hush ! don’t speak of them now. 
Well; there have been widowed wives and 
childless mothers ; and I am only one more ; and 
what is to come is dark to us all, except that 
there is death for every body. — No blessing, 
father, to-day I It has never done me any good, 
and I cannot bear it. Try it upon that little 
one, if you like.’ 

As soon as the priest was gone, muttering 
amidst his tears the blessing to which she would 
not listen, Dora threw herself down on her pal- 


164 


IRISH FATALITY. 


et and instantly slept. She scarcely woke 
again till called up, eight and forty hours after, 
to prepare for trial. 

Sleep had restored her to perfect sanity, and 
a full and deep consciousness of her misery. A 
demeanor of more settled sorrow, a countenance 
more intensely expressive of anguish, were never 
seen in that or any other court. She was silent 
from first to last, except when called upon for 
the few necessary words which her counsel could 
not say for her. Though deeply attentive to the 
proceedings, she appeared to sustain no conflict 
of hope and fear. In her mind it was evident 
that the whole matter was settled from the be- 
ginning. 

She had all that law and justice, the justice 
of a law court, could give her. Her country- 
men must still wait for the more enlightened 
law, the more effectual justice whose office is 
rather to obviate than to punish crime : but all 
that pertains to law and justice, after the per- 
petration of crime, Dora had, both in the way 
of defence and infliction. She had good coun- 
sel, an impartial jury, a patient and compassion- 
ate judge. She was accordingly fairly tried and 
condemned to transportation for life, on the first 


IRISH FATALITY. 


165 


charge ; the second was waived as unnecessary, 
the issue of the first being a conviction. 

As the condemned was leaving the court, she 
Ijeard ( for on this day nothing escaped her) the 
lamentations of one who had known her from 
her infancy, over her having had an education. 
‘ If she had never been taught to write,’ urged 
her sage neighbor, ‘ this murtherous letter could 
never have been brought against her.’ To 
which some one replied that she would still have 
been convicted of perjury. 

£ Is there no language to threaten in,’ asked 
Dora, speaking rapidly as she passed , 1 but that 
which is spelled by letters? Overthrow every 
school in the country, empty all your ink into 
the sea, make a great fire of all your paper, and 
you will still find threats inscribed wherever 
there is oppression. There will be pictures 
traced in the sands of the seashore ; there will 
be pikes stuck up on each side the doors ; there 
will be mock gibbets for signals, and a multitude 
of scowling brows for warnings. Let those who 
are above us look within themselves, and as 
sure as they find these traces of tyrannical de- 
sires, will they see round about them marks of 
revengeful plots, though the people under them 


66 


IRISH FATALITY. 


may be as brutish in their ignorance as slaves in 
their bondage. When do prosperous men plot, 
or contented men threaten, or those who are 
secure perjure themselves, or the well-governed 
think of treachery? Who believes that con- 
spiracy was born in our schools instead of on 
our cold hearths, or that violence is natural to 
any hands but those from which their occupation 
and their subsistence are wrenched together? 
The school in which m-y husband and I learned 
rebellion was the bleak rock, where famine came 
to be our teacher. A grim set of scholars she 
had — — ’ 

‘ What is the prisoner talking about ? ’ cried 
a potential voice from behind. ‘ Remove her. 
officer ! ’ 


IRISH DISAFFECTION. 


167 


CHAPTER IX. 

IRISH DISAFFECTION. 

The rumor of the intention of the whiteboys 
to break the gaol, or otherwise rescue the pris- 
oners, was unfounded. Since the new works 
were begun on Mr. Tracey’s estate, the numbers 
of the disaffected in the district had lessened 
considerably, and those who remained were for 
the most part employed on distant expeditions. 
Dan had been out of his own neighborhood so 
long that he heard of Dora’s capture only- a few 
days before her trial, his father-in-law having 
failed in his attempt to give him immediate 
intelligence of the event. The exasperated 
husband vowed, as soon as he learned her sen- 
tence, to move heaven and earth to rescue her ; 
and all that one man could do to this end he 
did: but he was not heartily seconded by his 
companions ; they considering the attempt too 
hazardous for their present, ^rce, and not seeing 
that this case required their interference more 
than many which were presented to their obser- 
vation every day. If their attempt had been 


IG8 IRISH DISAFFECTION. 

agreed upon and planned ever so wisely, it 
would have been baffled by the fears of the 
magistrates, who, alarmed by the rumors afloat, 
determined to send the convicts round by sea to 
the port where the convict-ship awaited them, 
instead of having them traverse the island. A 
small vessel w.as secretly engaged to wait off* the 
coast at the nearest point, to receive the convicts, 
before it should be known that they had left the 
gaol. 

F ather Glenny, who was aware of the scheme, 
and therefore prepared to make his parting visit 
at the right time to the unhappy outcasts from 
his flock, repaired to Mr. Tracey’s when his 
painful duty was done, dispirited, and eager for 
some relief from the harrowing thoughts which 
the various interviews had left behind. Mr. 
Tracey invited him to inspect the works, and see 
what had been done thereby for the estate and 
for the people. They rode to the shore just as 
the laborers were leaving work, and at the pro- 
per time for conversing with some of them 
respecting their prospects, and the hopes and 
views with which they were about to begin life 
in another land. An ardent desire to emigrate 
was found to prevail: a desire arising out of 


IRISH DISAFFECTION. 169 

hatred to middlemen and tithe-proctors, discon- 
tent with as much as they knew of the law, and 
despair of permanently improving their condition 
at home. They acknowledged their landlord’s 
justice in enabling them to remove advantage- 
ously, smiled at the victory over Mr. Orme, on 
which they prided themselves as a grand parting 
achievement, and spoke with gratitude of the 
kindness of Mr. Rosso’s family during their time 
of sore distress; but the only person among their 
superiors in whom they seemed to place implicit 
confidence was Father Glenny. To him they 
said little of the barrier which they believed to 
separate the rich and the poor in Ireland: on 
him no man among them looked with an evil 
eye; against him were directed no remarks that 
there was one sort of justice for the powerful 
and another for the helpless. Their affection 
being strong in proportion as it was concentrated, 
they almost adored their priests, and swore that 
when their wives and children should have fol- 
lowed them abroad, Father Glenny would be 
the only tie to their native district which they 
would be unwilling to break.. 

* How different an embarkation will theirs be V 
he observed to his companion, when he had 


170 


IRISH DISAFFECTION. 


given his blessing and passed on along the ridge 
of the cliff. 4 How different a departure from 
that of their brethren who are sent away as crim- 
inals ! Here, the husband goes in hope of soon 
welcoming his family to a home of better prom- 
ise than they leave ; there a wife is carried away 
alone, in disgrace, severed forever from her 
husband and her child. Itnnakes one thought- 
ful to consider that the least painful of these de- 
partures might -possibly have been rendered un- 
necessary by a wiser social management ; but, as 
for the other, we ought to kneel in the dust, cry- 
ing for mercy, till Heaven shall please to remove 
from us the scourge of crime, and the heart- 
withering despair which follows it. If you had 
seen and heard what I have seen and heard this 
day, you would tremble at the retribution which 
is sent upon the people and their rulers. Let 
us pray day and night to avert it ! 5 

4 And in the intervals of our prayers, father, 
let us exert ourselves to avert it by removing the 
abuses from which it springs. Instead of apply- 
ing palliatives, let us go to the loot of the evil. 
Instead of providing a legal relief for our poor, 
which must in time become a greater burden 
than we now labor under, we must remove the 


IRISH DISAFFECTION. 171 

weights which oppress their industry, guard 
against the petty tyranny under which they suf- 
fer, and all the while, persevere in educating, 
and still educating, till they shall be able to assist 
our reforms; to understand the law beneath 
which they live ; instead of defying it, to respect 
the government (by that time more efficient to 
secure the objects at which it aims) ; and to act 
upon the belief that men of various creeds and 
ranks and offices may dwell together without 
enmity. May not all this come of education, 
coupled with political reforms, and sanctioned 
by the blessing we pray for ? ’ 

4 Heaven grant it may ! 5 exclaimed the priest, 
who was now attentively observing some one who 
was sitting on the sunny side of a fence which 
ran to the very verge of the rock. It was an old 
man, with a babe on his knee, to whom he was 
alternately talking and singing in a feeble, crack- 
ed voice. His song was of the sea, to which 
he looked perpetually, and over which the set- 
ting sun was trailing a long line of glistering gold; 
to the great delight of the infant as well as its 
guardian. 

4 It is Sullivan ! ’ exclaimed the priest, 4 and 
it is poor Dora’s child that he holds on his knee. 


172 


IRISH DISAFFECTION. 


True it is, that God feeds the young ravens that 
cry. Yonder babe has thriven in this desert as 
if its nightly rest were on its mother’s bosom. 
The old man, too, looks cheerily. You will not 
take advantage, my son, of his having ventured 
above ground in a still hour like this. You 
will not bid the law take its course on one whose 
gray hairs came before his crimes began ? ’ 

‘ Not for the world,* said Tracey. ‘ Shall 
we alight and speak to him, or would it alarm 
him too much ? ’ 

They drew near while still unobserved by the 
old man, whose noisy sport hindered his hearing 
their footsteps. At this moment, a small vessel 
appeared from behind a projecting rock, her 
sails filled with -a fresh north wind, and appear- 
ing of a snowy whiteness as they caught the sun- 
light. When she shot across the golden track, 
the babe sprang and crowed in the old man’s 
arms. 

* The saints’ blessing on ye, my jewel ! ’ cried 
he, in almost equal glee. ‘ It’s there you would 
be, dancing on the blue waves, instead of in my 
old arms, that will scarcely hold you in more 
than an unbroken colt, my pretty one ! There 
she goes, my darling, 


IRISH DISAFFECTION. 


173 


Full of boys so frisky 

With the sweet-smelling whiskey, 

Flying over seas and far away ; 

Good luck go with ’em ’ 

4 Sullivan ! ’ cried the priest, who could no 
longer endure this ill-timed mirth. 

The old man scrambled up in a moment, and 
made his obeisance before the mournful gravity 
of his pastor. 

4 Sullivan ! ’ continued Father Glenny, 4 Do 
you know that vessel? You cannot be aware 
what freight it bears ! You ’ 

4 1 know now all about it, ’ replied the old man, 
pettishly. 4 How could your reverence expect 
my old eyes to see so far off what ship Dora 
was on board of? And what makes your rev- 
erence bring his honor to be a spy on an old 
man’s disgrace, unless he comes to catch me, 
and send me after Dora? ’Tis near the hour 
when foxes and justices come out after their 
prey. You may have me for the catching, your 
honor; and much good may it do you to have 
got me.’ 

He would not listen to a word Mr. Tracey 
had to say, but went on addressing the child, as 
if no one had been present, his glee being, how- 
ever, all turned to bitterness. 


174 


IRISH DISAFFECTION. 


‘ Agh, my jewel ! and you knew more nor I 
while you sprung as a lamb does when the ewe 
bleats. Stretch your arms, my darling, for your 
mother is there ; and fain would I bid ye begone 
to her, though it would leave me alone in the 
wide world, where there’s not a thing rny eyes 
love but you, babby dear! ’ 

And so he went on, sitting doggedly down 
with his back to the gentlemen, who retreated, 
intending to come again the next day, when he 
might be in a more communicative mood. At 
some distance they looked once more behind 
them, and saw that another man had joined Sul- 
livan, and was standing over him, pointing to 
the receding vessel. 

‘ It is Dan ! ’ cried the priest, quickly turning 
his horse and riding back. Before he could 
reach the spot, Dan had snatched a hasty kiss 
of his infant, and disappeared. The old man’s 
countenance was now fallen, and his tone sub- 
dued. 

4 You will never see 'Dan more,’ said he, 
‘though you may hear much of him. The just 
and merciful will never see his face again, and 
he has forsworn his priest. Where he will show 
himsell from this time, it will be in the dead of 


IRISH DISAFFECTION. 


175 


the night, with a crape on his face and a pike 
in his hand. They that have made him mad 
must put up with a madman's deeds.’ 

4 Mad i ’ cried Tracey. 

4 He means exasperated,’ replied the priest. 

4 Dan hoped to the last to rescue his wife, and 
the failure has made him desperate.’ . 

4 I’m alone now in the world entirely,’ mutter- 
ed Sullivan, rocking the now wearied infant to 
sleep. ‘Barring this orphan’s, I shall see little of 
the face of man. It was the face of a devil that 
bent over us just now. Long may it be before 
it scares us again.’ 

Sullivan said truly, that Dan would hence- 
forth be heard of and not seen by any but the 
victims of his violence. He who was once the 
pride is now the scourge of the Glen of the 
Echoes. 


176 


SUMMARY 


SUMMARY OF FRINCIFLES ILLUSTRATED IN THIS 
# VOLUME. 

Whatever affects the security of property, 
or intercepts the due reward of labor, impairs 
the subsistence-fund by discouraging industry 
and forethought. 

Partnership tenantcies affect the security of 
property by rendering one tenant answerable for 
the obligations of all his partners, while he has 
no control over the management of their portions. 

A gradation of landlords on one estate has 
the same effect, by rendering one tenant liable 
to the claims of more than one landlord. 

The levying of fines on a whole district for an 
illegal practice going on in one part of it, has 
the same effect, by rendering the honest man 
liable for the malpractices of the knave 

The imposition of a church establishment on 
those who already support another church, inter- 
cepts the due reward of labor, by taking from 
the laborer a portion of his earnings ior an ob- 
ject from which he derives no benefit. 

The practice of letting land to the highest 
bidder, without regard to former service or to 


SUMMARY. 


177 


the merits of the applicants, intercepts the due 
reward of the laborer, by decreeing his gains to 
expire with his lease. 

All these practices having prevailed in Ire- 
land, her subsistence-fund is proportionably im- 
paired, though the reduction is somewhat more 
than compensated by the natural growth of cap- 
ital. 

While capital has been growing much more 
slowly than it ought, population has been increas- 
ing much more rapidly than the circumstances of 
the country have warranted : the consequences 
of which are, extensive and appalling indigence, 
and a wide spread of the moral evils which at- 
tend it. 

An immediate palliation of this indigence would 
be the result of introducing a legal pauper-sys- 
tem into Ireland ; but it would be at the expense 
of an incalculable permanent increase of the evil 

To levy a poor-rate on the country at large 
would be impolitic, since it would only increase 
the primary grievance ol an insufficiency of capi- 
tal, by causing a further unproductive consump- 
tion of it. 

To throw the burden of a pauper system on 
absentees would be especially unjust, since they 
M 


178 


SUMMARY. 


bear precisely the same relation to the wealth ol 
their country as its resident capitalists. 

In the case of Ireland, as in all analogous 
cases, permanent relief can be effected only by 
adjusting the proportions of Capital and popula- 
tion : and this must be attempted by means suit- 
ed to her .peculiar circumstances. 

The growth of capital should be aided by im- 
provements in agricultural and domestic econo- 
my, and by the removal of political grievances ; 
from which would follow a union, in place of an 
opposition of interests. 

Population should be reduced within due 
limits, — 

In the present emergency, by well-conducted 
schemes of emigration ; and 

Permanently, by educating the people till 
they shall have become qualified for the guar- 
dianship of their own interests. 


ENOCH MORGAN’S SONS’ 



LOVELL’S LIBRARY. 


AHEAD OF ALL COMPETITORS. 


The improvements being constantly made in “ Lovell’s Library," have 
placed it in the Front Rank of cheap publications in this country. The 
publishers propose to still further improve the series by having 

better paper, 

BETTER PRINTING, 

LARGER TYPE, 

and more attractive - cover than any series in the market. 


SEE WEDA-T IS SAID OE IT: 

The following extract from a letter recently received shows the appre- 
ciation in which the Library is held bv those who most constantly read it : 

“ Mercantile Library, ) 

“ Baltimore, August 2'J, 1883. ) 

“Will you kindly send me two copies of your latest list? I am glad to see that 
you now issue a volume every day. Yqyr Library we find greatly preferable to the 
‘Seaside’ and ‘Franklin Square’ Series, and even better than the 12mo. form of- the 
latter, the page being of better shape, the lines better leaded, and the words better 
spaced. Altogether your series is much, more in favor with our subscribers than either 
of its rivals. “ S. C. DONALDSON, Assistant Librarian.” 


JOHN W. LOVELL CO., Publishers, 

±4z 16 Vesey Street, USTe-w* Tf>r» ir - 



THE BUST 

WASHING COMPOUND 

EVER INVENTED. 

No Lady, Married or 
Single* Rich or Poor* 
Housekeeping or Board- 
ing* will be without it 
after testing its utility^ 
Sold by all first-class 
Grocers, but beware of 
worthless imitations. 



JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY’S 

CHEAP ED1TJONS OF 

POPULAR WORKS. 


The following are all 12mo. size, printed from large, clear type, on 
good paper, attractively bound in illuminated paper covers. Hand- 
j somely stamped cloth bindings for any volume, furnished for 10 
. cents extra. 


Library Editions of those books marked with a * are also 
published large 12mo. size, handsomely bound in cloth. Price, $1.00 
a volume. 


By EDMOND ABOUT. 

A New Lease of Life . 20 

By Mrs. ALEXANDER. 

*The Wooing O’t, Part 1 15 

“ “ “ Part II 15 

♦The Admiral’s Ward.. 20 

By P. ANSTEY, 

♦Vice Versa; or, a Lesson to 
Fathers 20 

By SIR SAMUEL BAKER. 

♦Cast up by the Sea 20 


, *Eig;jt Years Wandering in Ceylon. .20 

' *Rifle and Hound in Ceylon 20 

By IIONORE DE BALZAC. 

The Vendetta, Tales of Love and Pas- 
sion 20 

-By WALTER BESANT AND 
JAMES RICE. 

They Were Married 10 

Let Nothing You Dismay 10 

By BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON. 

The Happy Boy 10 

10 

By WILHELM B iRGSOE. 

Pillone 15 

By LILLIE DEVEREUX BLAKE. 
Woman’s I -lace To-day 20 


By Miss M. E. BliADDON, 

♦The Golden Calf 20 

♦Lady Audley's Secret 20 

By WILLIAM BLACK. 

An Adventure in Thule and Marriage 

of Moira Fergus 10 

*A Princess of Thule 20 

*A Daughter of Heth 20 

*6 hau don Belis 20 

♦Macleod o- Dare. 20 

♦Madcap Violet 20 

♦Strange Adventuies of a Phaeton.. .20 

♦ 'tv hite Wings 20 

♦Kilmeny, 20 

♦Sunrise 20 

♦That. Beautiful Wretch 20 

♦in Silk Attire .20 

♦The Three Feathers 20 

♦Green Pastures and Piccadilly .20 

♦Yolande 20 

By CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 
♦Jane Eyre.. 20 

By RHODA BROUGHTON. 

♦Second Thoughts 20 

♦Belinda 20 

By JAMES S. BUSH. 0 
More Word 8 About the Bible 20 

By E. LASSETER BYNNER. 
Nimport, Part 1 15 

** Part II 15 

Tritons, Part 1 15 

“ Part II 15 


By Mrs. CHAMPNEY 
Bourbon Lilies 20 

By WILKIE COLLINS. 

*The Moonstone, Part 1 10 

“ “ Part II 10 

*The New Magdalen 20 

♦Heart and Science 20 

By J. FENIMORE COOPER. 

♦The Last of the Mohicans 20 

♦The Spy _ 20 

By THOMAS DE QUINCE Y. 

The Spanish Nun 10 

By CARL DETLEF. 

Irene, or the Lonely Manor 20 

By CHARLES DICKENS. 

♦Oliver Twist 20 

Pickwick Papers, Part 1 20 

“ Part II 20 

♦A Tale of Two Cities 20 

♦Child’s History of England 20 

By “THE DUCHESS.” 

♦Portia, or by Passions Rocked 20 

♦Molly Bawn 20 

♦Phyllis 20 

Monica ,...10 

♦Mrs. Geoffrey 20 

♦Airy Fairy Lilian 20 

♦Beauty's Daughters 20 

♦Faith and Umaith 20 

♦Loys, Lord Beresford 20 

Moonshine and Marguerites 10 

By Lord DUFFERIN. 

Letters from High Latitudes 20 

By GEORGE ELIOT. 

♦Adam Bede, Part 1 15 

“ “ Part II 15 

Amos Bartoa 10 

Silas Marner 10 

♦Romola Parti 15 

“ Part II 15 

By F. W. FARRAR, D.D. 

♦Seekers After God 20 

♦Early Days of Christianity, Part I. . .20 
“ “ “ “ Part II.. 20 

By JOHN FRANKLIN. 

Ameline du Bourg 15 

By OCTAVE FEUILLET. 

A Marriage in High Lifo 20 


By HENRY GEORGE. 
Progress and Poverty '. 20 

By CHARLES GIBBON. 

♦The Golden Shaft 20 

By OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
Vicar of Wakefield 10 

By Mrs. GORE. 

The Dean’s Daughter 20 

By JAMES GRANT. 

♦The Secret Despatch 20 

By THOMAS HARDY. 

Two on a Tower. .' 20 

By PAXTON HOOD. 

Life of Cromwell 15 

By LEONARD HENLEY 
♦Life of Washington 26 

By JOSEPH HATTON. 

♦Clytie 20 

♦Cruel London 20 

By LUDOVIC HALEVY. 

L’ Abbe Constantin 20 

By ROBERT HOUDIN. 


The Tricks of the Greeks Unveiled. ..20 
By HORRY AND WEEMS. 


♦Life of Marion 20 

By Miss HARRIS T JAY. 

The Dark Colleen 20 

By MARION HARLAND. 
Housekeeping and Homemaking 15 

By STANLEY HUNTLEY. 
♦Spoopendyke Papers .20 

By WASHINGTON IRVING. 
♦The Sketch Book 20 

By SAMUEL JOHNSON. 
Rasselas 10 

By JOHN P. KENNEDY. 

♦Horse Shoe Robinson, Part 1 15 

Part II 15 

By EDWARD KELLOGG. 

Labor and Capital 20 


By EMILE GABOIilAU. 

♦The Lerouge Case 

♦Monsieur Lecoq, Part I 

“ “ Part II 

♦The Mystery of Orcival ........ 

♦Other People’s Money 

♦In Peril of his Life 

♦The Gilded Clique 

Promises of Marriage — 


By GRACE KENNEDY. 


Dunallen, Part 1 15 

“ Part II 15 

By CHAS. KINGSLEY. 

♦The Hermits. . . .20 

♦Hypatia, Part, I 1* 

“ Part II 15 


20 

20 

.20 

,20 

20 

20 


I 



By Miss MARGARET LEE. 
♦Divorce 20 

By IIENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 

♦Hyperion .. .20 

♦Outre-Mer 20 

By SAMUEL LOVER. 

The Happy Man 10 

By LORD LYTTON. 

The Coming Race 10 

Leila, or the Siege of Granada 10 

Earnest Maltravers 20 

The Haunted House, and Caldero-n 

The Courtier 10 

Alice; a sequel to Earnest Maltravers. 20 

A Strange S'orv 20 

♦Last Days of Pompeii 20 

Zanoni 20 

Night and Morning, Part 1 15 

“ “ Part II 15 

Paul Clifford 20 

Lady of Lyons 10 

Money 10 

Richelieu 10 

By H. C. LUKENS, 

♦Jets and Flashes 20 

By Mbs. E. LYNN LINTON, 
lone Stewart 20 

By W. E. MAYO. 

The Berber 30 

By A. MATHEY. 

Duke of Kandos 20 

The Two Duchesses 20 

By JUSTIN H . MCCARTHY. 

An Outline of Irish History 10 

By EDWARD MOTT. 

♦Pike County Folks. 20 

By MAX MULLER. 

*India, what can she teach us? 20 

By Miss MULOCK. 

♦John Halifax 20 

By R. HEBER NEWTON 
The Right and Wrong Usee of the 
Bible 20 

By W. E. NORRIS. 

♦No New Thing 20 

By OUIDA. 

♦Wanda, Part 1 15 

“ Part II 15 

♦Under Two Flags, Parti .......20 

“ “ Part II 20 

By Mrs. OLIP11ANT. 

♦The Ladies Lindores < .20 

By LOUISA PARR. ) 
Robin. . .* ..20 


By JAMES PAYN. 

♦Thicker than Water. 20 

By CHARLES READE. 

Single Heart and Double Face, , , 10 

By REBECCA FERGUS REDCLIFF. 
Freckles 20 

By Sir RANDALL H. ROBERTS. 

Harry Holbrooke 20 

By Mrs. ROWSON. 

Charlotte Temple 10 

By W. CLARK RUSSELL. 

♦A Sea Queen 20 

By GEORGE SAND. 

The Tower of Percemont .2 q 

By Mrs. W. A. SAVILLE. 

Social Etiquette 15 

By MICHAEL SCOTT. 

♦Tom Cringle’s Log 20 

By EUGENE SCRIBE. 
Fieurette 20 

By J. PALGRAVE SIMPSON. 
Haunted Hearts 10 

By GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C.L. 

False Hope3 15 

By DEAN SWIFT 
Gulliver’s Travels 20 

By W. M. THACKERAY. 

♦Vanity Fair, Part I... 15 

*• " “ II 15 

By Judge D. P. THOMPSON. 

♦The Green Mountain Boys 20 

By THEODORE TILTON. 

Tempest Tossed, Part 1 20 

“ “ Part II 20 

By JULES VERNE. 

*800 Leagues on the Amazon. . * . . . 10 

♦The Cryptogram 10 

By GEORGE WALKER. 

♦The Three Spaniards, f. 20 

By W. M. WILLIAMS. 

Science in Short Chapters 20 

By Mrs. HENRY WOOD. 

♦East Lynne .20 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

Paul a^.d Virginia lo 

Margaret and her Bridesmaids 20 

The Queen of the County 20 

Baron Munchausen io 


LOVELL S LIBRARY ADVERTISER 


RECENTLY PUBLISHED ; 

UNDERGROUND RUSSIA: 

Revolutionary Profiles and Sketches from Life. 

Ly STEPNIAK, formerly Editor of “ Zemiia i Volia " (Land and 
Liberty). With a Preface by PETER LAVROFF. Translated 
fioin the Italian. 1 vol. 12mo., paper cover, Lovell’s Library, 
No. 173 price 20 cents. 

^ ^ e i k. oolc _ 13 as 7 e t unique in literature is a priceless contribution to 
our Knowledge of Russian thought and feeling; as a tn and faithful reflection 
r certain a^p^cts of, perliaps, the most tremendous politicial movement tu 
History , it seems destined to become a standard work — Athenaeum, 


An Outline of the History o* Ireland, 

From the Earliest Times to the present day. 

By JEST Ilf H. McCxYRTHY. 1 vol. 12mo., LoveiPs Library , 
No. llo. price 10 cents v j 

'A timely and exceedingly vigorous and interesting little v Jume. The book 
is worthy of attentive peru'al, and will be all the moio interesting because it 
involves in its production the warm sympathies, the passionate enthusiasm, and 
the vivid brilliancy of style which one is glad to welcome >om the sou cf the 
distinguished journalist and author — Christian World. 

‘'All Irishme* who love their country, and all candid Englishmen, mght to 
welcome Sir Justin II. McCarthy’s Jit: le volume— ‘An Outline of Irish History,’ 
i hose who want to know how it has come about that, as John Stuart I', ill long 
ago pointed out, all cues for the remedy of specific Irish grievances are now 
\r e r£ e A. m tlle dangerous demand for nationality, win uo well to road Mr. 
McCarthy g I’ttle book. It is eloquently written, and c arnes us from the earliest 
l egends to the autumn of 1882. The charm of the style and the lmpetuousnese 
in the flow of the narrative are refr ,*shing and stimulating, and, as regards his- , 
tone impartiaM ty, Mr McCarthy is far more just than is Mr Froude. ’—Graphic, 

A brightly written and intelligent account of the leading events in Irish 
annals. . . . . Mr.. McCarthy has performed a difficult task with commen&ible 
good spirit and impartiality.’ - Whitehall Rev!ew. 

“ *1 o those who enjoy exceptionally brilliant and vigorous writing, as well 
as to those who desire to post themselves up in the Irish question, we cordially 
recommend Mr. McCarthy s little book.” -Evening News. 


ENGLISH MEN OP LETTERS. 


Edited by JOHN MORLEY. 

Published in 12rno. vols., paper covers, price 10 cents each. 

-Johnson By Leslie Stephen. 

Scott. By R. H. H neon. 

Gibbon By J C. Monson. 

Shelley. ByJ.A Symonds. 

Hume. By Prof Huxley. P R. S. 

Goldsmith By William Black. 

Defoe. By W.Mmto 
Burns. By Principal Shairp 
Spenser. By the Very Rev. the Dean 
of St. Paul's. 


Thackeray By A Trollope 
Burke By John MorSey 
Bunyan By J. A. Froude. 

Pope. By Leslie Stephen. 

Byron. By Profes-or Nichol. 
Cowper By Goldwin Smith 
Locke By Professor Fowler. 
Wordsworth, ByF.W II Myers. 
Milton. By Ma k Pattison. 
Southey By Professor Dowden. 
Chaucer. By Prof. A. W Ward. 


New York : JOSfiN IV. LOVELL COMPANY. 


LOVELL’S LIBRARY ADVERTISER. 


crcrsa? ^-ctxbxjXsxxiejD. 

VICE VERSA; 

Or, A LESSON TO FATHERS, 
By F. ANSTEY. 

1 vol., 12mo., cloth gilt, $1.00: 1 vol., 12mo., paper, 50 cents; also in Lovell’s 

Library No. 30, 20 cents. 

EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES BY THE PRESS. 

THE SATURDAY REVIEW.—” If there ever was a book made up from 
beginning to end of laughter, yet not a comic book, or a ‘merry’ book, or a 
book of jokes, or a book of pictures, or a jest book, or a tomfool book, but a 
perfectly sober and serious book, in the reading of which a sober man may 
laugh without shame from beginning to end. it is the book called Vice 
Versa; or, a Lesson to Fathers.’ ..We close the book, recommending it 
very earnestly to all fathers, in the first instance, and their sons, nephews, 
uncles, and male cousins next.” 

THE PALL MALL GAZETTE.—” ‘Vice Versa is one of the most 
diverting books that we have read for many a day. It is equally calculated to 
amuse the August idler, and to keep up the spirits of those who stay in town 
and work, while others are holiday making ...The book is singularly well 
written, graphic, terse, and full of nerve. The school boy conversations are 
to the life, and every scene is brisk and well considered. ’ 

THE ATHENJ3UM. — “ The whole story is told with delightful drollery 
and spirit, and there is not a dull page in the volume. It should be added that 
Mr.Anstey writes well, and in a style admirably suited to his amusing subject. ' 

THE SPECTATOR Mr. Anstey deserves the thanks of everybody for 
showing that there is still a little fun left in this world . . It is long since we 
read anything more truly humorous . .. We must admit that we have not 
laughed so heartily over anything for some years bacx as we have over this 
* Lesson for Fathers.' ” 

THE ACADEMY.—” It is certainly the best book of its kind that has ap- 
peared for a long time, and in the way of provoking laughter by certain oid- 
fashioned means, which do not involve satire or sarcasm, it has few rivals.” 

THE WORLD.—' The idea of a father and son exchanging their identity 
has suggested itself. to many minds before now. It is illustrated in this book 
with surprising freshness, originalit and force The book is more than 
wildly comic ftud amusing; it is m parts exceedingly pathetic ” 

THE COURT JOURNAL.— “ The 8tory is told with so much wit and 
gayety that we cannot be deceived in our impressiou of the future career of F 
Anstey being destined to attain the greaUst success among the most popular 
authors of the day.” 

VANITY FAIR — ” The book is, in our opinion, the drollest work ever 
written in the English language 

TRUTH.— “ Mr. Anstey has done an exceedingly difljcult thing so admira- 
bly and artfully as to conceal its difficulties. Haven’t for years read so irresist- 
ibly humorous a book.” 


NEW YORK 

JOHN W, LOVELL CO., 14 and 16 Vesey Street. 


RECENTLY PUBLISHED. 


Attractive new editions of the following celebrated works of Sir Edward 
iJulwer, Lord Lytton, 

Z A^TOITI. 

By LORD LYTTON. 

, 1 v ?h' large type, good paper, well bound, eloth, gilt, $1.00: also in 

Lovell s Library, handsome paper cover, 20 cents. 

This work is happily conceived and ably executed. It is flowing and grace, 
ini in style and both piques and rewards the curiosity of the reader. 


THE COMING RACE; 

Or, THE NEW UTOPIA. 

By LORD LYTTON. 

1 vol. , 12mo., large, clear type, good paper, attractive cover, 10 cents. 

Without deciding on the comparative share of imagination and memory in 
the concoction of the work, we may pronounce it one of the most attractive 
books of the many interesting volumes of this popular author. 


A STRANGE STORY; 

By LORD LYTTON. 

1 vol., 12mo., cloth, gilt, $1.00; also in Lovell’s Library, handsome cover. 
20 cents. ’ 

The plot Bhows discrimination of judgment as well as force of expression, 
and its vigor of couception and brilliancy of description makes it one of his 
most readable novels. 


THE HAUNTED HOUSE; 

Or, The House and the Brain, to WHicn is added, Calderon, the 

Courtier. 

By -LORD LYTTON. 

1 vol.. 12mo., large type, good paper, handsome cover, 10 cents. 

This is a weird imaginative creation of singular power, showing intensity of 
conception and a knowledge of the remarkable effects of spiritual influences. 
Full Desqjiptive Catalogue sent on application. 

JOHN W. LOVELL CO., Publishers, . 

14 & 16 Vesey Street, New York, 



LOVELL’S LIBRARY ADVERTISER. 


A, 


RECENTLY PUBLISHED. 

False Hopes; 

OR, 

FALLACIES, SOCIALISTIC AND SEMI- SOCIALISTIC, 
BRIEFLY ANSWERED. 


An Address, by Prof. GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C.L. 


No. 110, Lovell’s Library 15 cents 

‘•‘'This is the title of a pamphlet in which Mr. Goldwin Smith dissects and 
lays hare, in the most unimpassioned way, but with the keenest of literary 
scalpels, the fallacies involved in communism, socialism, nationalization of 
land, strikes, the various plans in vogue for emancipating labor from the 
dominion of capital. Protection, and some theories of innovation with regard to 
Currency and Banking. The great number and prevalence of these diseases of 
the body politic are, he thinks, mainly due to the departure or decline of re- 
ligious faith, which is so noticeable a feature of the present age; to popular 
education, which has gone far enough to make the masses think, but not think 
deeply ; to the ostentation cf the vulgar rich, who ‘ deserve, fully as much as 
the revolutionary artisans, the name of a dangerous class to the democratic 
movement of the times ; and, to the revolution in science which has helped 
to excite the spirit of chauge in every sphere, little as Utopianism is akin to 
science.'”— Toronto Globe. , 


MR. SCARBOROUGH’S' FAMILY 

By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 


1 vol., 12mo., cloth, gilt ....$1.00 

1 “ “ paper 50 

Also in Lovell’s Library, No. 133, 2 parts, each 15 


“ In ‘Mr. Scarborough’s Family 1 there is abundance of ‘go,’ there are 
many striking scenes, and there is one character at least which is original 
almost to incredibility. There are light sketches of social life, one or two of 
them nearly in the author’s best manner, and many chapters which are ex- 
tremely entertaining. The story is so life-like and so extremely readable, that 
we lay it down with a pleasure largely leavened with regret.”— Saturday 
Review. 

“ • Mr. Scarborough’s Family ’ is a very enjoyable novel. Mr. Trollope has 
never given us two stronger or less commonplace characters than that terrible 
old pagan, John Scarborough, and his attorney, Grey, whom we agree with his 
employer in describing as ‘ the sweetest and finest gentleman ’ we ever came 
across.”— Academy. 

“‘Mr Scarborough’s Family’ recalls all those features in Mr. Trollope’s 
books which have made them the pleasure and instruction of generatious of 
novel readers. He is in his old vein, and he has a story to tell that is infinitely 
amusing. Mr. Scarborough is a wonderful study. There is, indeed, no char- 
acter iu the book that, has not been carefully thought out. There is a delight- 
ful freshness about Florence Mountjoy. She is a fiank, outspoken damsel, 
whose mind is as healthy as her body. It is needless to say that the talk 
throughout the book is good. The novel as a whole, indeed, is one that will 
make r.-aders regret more bitterly than ever that he who wrote it has gone from 
amongst as.”— Scotsman. 

JOHN W. LOVELL CO., 14 & 1*6 Vesey St., N. Y. 




THE SPY. 


The Last of the Mohicans. 

1 voh, 12mo. Paper Covers, 50c. Cloth, Gold and Black, $1.00. 


These books are unabridged , and printed on heavy white paper 
from large, new type. 

What Daniel Webster said of these Books: — “The enduring 
monuments of J. Fenimore Cooper are his works. While the love 
of country continues to prevail, his memory will exist in the hearts 
of the people. So truly patriotic and American throughout, they 
should find a place in every American’s library.” 

W. H. Prescott, the great historian^ said: — “In his produc- 
tions every American must take an honest pride.” 

Another great historian, George Bancroft, writes: — “His 
surpassing ability has made his own name and the names of the 
creations of his fancy ‘ household words ’ throughout the civilized 
world.” 

Washington Irving left on record: — “Cooper emphatically 
belongs to the nation. He lias left a space in our literature which 
will not be easily supplied.” 

Wm. C. Bryant, the poet and philosopher, says:— “He wrote for 
mankind at large; hence it is that he has earned a fame wider than 
any author of modern times. The creations of his genius shall 
survive through centuries to come, and only perish with our 
language.” 

V , 


JOHN W. LOVELL CO., Publishers, 

14 & 16 Vesey St., NeW York. 



Woman’s Place To-day. 

Foar lectures in reply to the Lenten lectures on “Woman,” by the Rev. 

Morgan Dix, D.D., of Trinity Church, New York. 

By Lillie Devereux Blakei 

No. 104, L,OVEIiL,’S LIBRARY, Paper Covers, 20 Cents, 
Ciotli Limp, 50 Cents. 

Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake last evening entertained an audience that filled 
Frobisher’s Hall, in East Fourteenth Street, by a witty and sarcastic handling 
of the recent Lenten talk of the Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix on the follies ef women 
of society.— New York Times. 

Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake is a very eloquent lady, and a thorn in the side 
of the Rev. Dr. Dix, and gentlemen who, like him, presume to say that woman 
is not man’s equal, if not his superior. Mrs. Blake in her reply to Dr. Dix’s 
recent lecture upon “ Divorce, ’’ made some interesting remarks upon the sex 
to which she has the honor to belong .— New York Commercial Advertiser. 

There is no denying that Mrs. Blake has, spartan-like, stood as a break-water 
to the surging flood Rector Dix has cast upon the so-called weaker sex with 
the hope of engulfing it. It is sad to see a gentleman in the position Dr. Dix 
occupies setting himself deliberately at work to not only bring reproach upon 
the female sex, but to make us all look with comtempt upon our mothers and 
sisters. And the worst of his case is that he has shown that spirit in the male 
part of mankind. w r hich is not at all creditable to it, of depreciating the in- 
tellect, the judgment, the ability and the capability of the female sex in order 
to elevate to a higher plane the male sex. According to Dr. Dix the world 
would be better were there no more female children born. And he makes 
this argument in the face of the fact that there would be “hell upon earth” 
were it not for the influence of women, and such women as Mrs. Lillie Devereux 
Blake, especially .— Albany Sunday Press. 


Mrs. Blake’s was the most interesting and spicy speech of the evening. She 
was in a sparkling mood and hit at everything and everybody that came to 
her mind. — The Evening Telegram. N. Y. 

A stately lily of a woman, with delicate features, a pair of great gray eyes that 
dilate as she speaks till they lighj her whole face like two great soft stars. — The 
Independent , N. Y. 

* * * She advanced to the front of the platform, gesticulated gracefully 
and spoke vigorously, defiantly and without notes.— New Yoj'k Citizen. 

* * * a most eloquent and polished oration. The peroration was a grand 
burst of eloquence. — Troy Times. 

Lillie Devereux Blake, blonde, brilliant, staccate, stylish, is a fluent speaker, 
of good platform presence, and argued wittily and well.— Washington Post. 

There are very few speakers on the platform who have the brightness, 
vivacity and fluency of Lillie Devereux Blake.— Albany Sunday Press. 

She is an easy, graceful speaker, and wide-awake withal, bringing our fre- 
quent applause.— Hartford Times. 

Mrs. Blake's address was forcible and eloquent. The speaker was frequently 
interrupted by applause. — New York Times. 

The most brilliant lady speaker in the city.— New York Herald. 

Has the reputation of being the wittiest woman on the platform.— San An- 
tonio Express. 

Mrs. Blake, who has a most pleasing address, then spoke; a strong vein of 
sarcasm, wit and humor pervaded the lady’s remarks.-- Poughkeepsie News. 

For Sale by all Newsdealers and Booksellers 

JOHN W. LOVELL CO., Publishers, 

14 & 16 Vesey Street, New York. 


LOVELL’S LIBRARY ADVERTISER. 


T^SOEHSJ'TTAir F’TJ'IDXjISHim. 

HEART AND SCIENCE. 

By WILKIE COLLINS. 


1 Vol., 12mo., cloth, gilt ....$1.00 

1 “ “ paper 50. 

Also in Lovell’s Library, No. 87 20 


“ Benjulia” is a singularly interesting, and, in a way, fascinating creation. 
Mr. Collins can deal strongly with a strong situation, but he has done nothing 
more powerful than his sketch of Benjulia’s last hours. Mr, Gallilee and Zoe 
are capital examples of genuine and unforced humor; and the book, as a 
whole, is thoroughly readable and enthralling from its first page to its last.”— 
Academy, 

“ Mr. Wilkie Collins’ latest novel is certainly one of the ablest he has writ- 
ten. It is quite the equal of ‘The Woman in White’ and of ‘The Moon- 
stone,’ consequently it may truthfully be described as a masterpiece in the 
peculiar line of fiction in. which Mr. Collins not only excels bu t distances every 
rival in the walk of literature he has marked out for himself. ‘Heart and 
Science ’ is in its way a great novel, certainly the best we have seen from Mr. 
Wilkie Collins since ‘ The Woman in White ’ and ‘ Arinada’e.’ ” — Morning Post. 

“ We doubt whether the author has ever written h cleverer story. . . . An 
eloquent and touching tribute to the blessedness and power of a true and 
1 oving heart. The hook unites in a high degree the attractions of thrilling nar- 
rative and clever portraiture of character, of sound wisdom and real humor.” — 
Congregationalist. 


“W AlTDA. 

By OUIDA. 


1 vol., 12mo., cloth, gilt .' $1.00 

1 “ “ paper 50 

Also in Lovell’s Library, No. 112, 2 parts, each 15 


“‘Wanda’ is the story by which Ouida will probably be judged by the 
literary historian of the future, for it is distinguished by all her high merits, 
and not disfigured by any one of her few defects. In pointof construction this 
most recent contribution to the fictional literature of the day is perfect; the 
dialogues are both brilliant and stirring, and the descriptive passages are mas- 
terpieces. Ouida is seen at her brightest and best in ‘Wanda’ the book thrills 
by its dramatic interest, and delights by its singular freshness and unconven- 
tional style. There are no more attractive characters in English fiction than 
Wanda and her peasant husband, and increased fame must result to the bril- 
liant novelist from this her latest work.”— St. Stephen's Review. 

“ We do not know anything Ohida has done that equals this, her latest 
novel, in power of delineating character and describing scenery. Wanda is a 
fine, high-souled character.”— Citizen. 

“A powerful and fascinating novel, deeply interesting, with excellent 
character portrayal, and written in that sparkling style for which Ouida is 
famous. ‘ Wanda ’ deserves to take rank by the side of the best of her previous 
novels .” — Darlington Post. 

“‘Wanda ’ contains much that is striking. The central idea is finely 
worked out. We have seen nothing from Ouida’s pen that strikes us as being, 
on the whole, so well conceived and so skilfully wrought out.”— Spectator. 

JOHN W. LOVELL CO., 

14 & 16 Vesey Street, Wow York. 


N0VEL3 BY 

THE DUCHESS 

Al! ot which are now issued in Lovell’s Library* in 
handsome 12mo form, for 



2 0 CENTS EACH, 

Viz : 

Portia, or By Passions Rocked \ 

Phyllis, 

Molly Bawn, 

Airy Fairy Lillian, 

Mrs. Geoffrey, Etc., Etc. 


The works by The Duchess have passed, and far passed, all 
competitors in the race for popularity and admirers. Editions 
after editions have rapidly succeeded each other, both in England 
and this Country, and it is an interesting fact (to the publishers) 
I to know that the supply does not equal the demand. Select and 
read any one of the above, and you will not be happy till you have 
read them all. It would be of little use giving extracts from the 
thousands of eulogistic press criticisms. Your only plan is to 
buy one, and be convinced that the Novels by The Duchess are 
the most intensely interesting light reading written for many a 
year. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent postage paid 
on receipt of price, by the publishers. 

JOHN W. LOVELL CO., 

14 and 16 Vesey Street, 

New Yosi*. 

X 


LOVELL’S LIBRARY ADVERTISER. 


POPULAR H0¥ELS HEQEHTLY PUBLISHED. 


Mr. William Bla 
YOLANDE, The SI 
By William Black, Author of “ 
Thule,” “The Strange Adve 
12mo., cloth, gilt, $1.00; 1 \ 
in Lovell's Library, No. 1.3 
“A thoroughly pleasant, readable 
book, showing all Mr. Black’s best 
qualities as a novelist.”— Pall Mall 
Gazette. 

‘‘The novel will satisfy Mr. Black’s 

ck’s New Novel, 
tory of a Daughter, 

Shandon Bells,” “A Princess of 
nturesof a Phaeton,” etc.; 1 vol., 
ml., 12mo., paper, 50 cents; also 

6, 20 cents. 

numerous admirers that his right 
hand has lost none of its cunning ” 
—St. James' Gazette . 

“ ‘Yolande’ will please and interest 
many.’ — Whitehall Review. 

The LADIES LINDORES 

published in Blackwood's. Mage 

“She is always readable, but never 
so entertaining as when she lays the 
scene in Scotland It is impossible 

to imaginesketches more lifelike than 
those of old Rolls, the pragmatic but- 
ler ...of Miss Barbara Erskine, the 
high-spirited, punctilious, but sensi- 
ble old aunt; of Lord Rintoul, the 
weakly yet coolly selfish and sensible 
young lord of the ordinary young 

. By Mrs. Oliphant. Originally 
izine. 1 vol . 12mo. , cloth, gilt, $1. 
laird John Erskine, and of the most 
modern of marquises, Lord Mille- 
fleurs "—Spectator. 

“ ‘The Ladies Lindores’ is in every 
respect excellent There are two 
giris at least in this book who might 
make the fortune of any novel, being 
deliciously feminine and natural.” — 
Saturday Review. 

LOYS, LORD BERESFOB 
Author of “Phyllis,” “M0II5 
1 vol., 12rno., cloth, gilt, $i.( 
126, 1 vol., 12mo., paper cot 
“That delightful writer, the author 
of ‘Phyllis,' has given us a collection 
of stories which cannot fail to be pop- 

LD, and oher Tales. By the 
t Bawn,” “Mrs. Geoffrey,” etc. 

)0; also in Lovell’s Library, No. 
rer, 20 cents. 

ular There is something good in all 
of them, and one or two arc e.^pecialiy 
racy and piquant. The Academy. 

NO NEW THING. By W 

mony,” “Mademoiselle de ]\1 
gilt, $1.00; also in Lovell’s 
“Mr. Norris has succeeded. His 
story, ‘No New Thing,’ is a very curi- 
ous one There is unmistakable 

capacity in his work.”— Spectator. 

E. Norris, Author of “Matri- 
ersac,” etc. 1 voh, 12mo., cloth, 
Library, No. 108, 20 cents. 

“ ‘No New Thing’ is bright, readable 
and clever, and in every sense of the 
word a thoroughly interesting book.” 

- Whitehall Review. 

ARDEN. B7 A. Mary P. Robi 
Library, No. 134, 15 cents. 

“Miss Robinson must certainly be 
congratulated on having scored a suc- 
cess at the very beginning of her ca- 
reer. ‘Arden’ is an extremely clever 
story, and though itis one merely of 
every-day life, yet the incidents are so 
clothed as to appear fresh and new, 
and the scent of the hay throughout 
is invigorating and refreshing. The 
heroine, who gives her name to the 
book, is a wild, impulsive creature 
whom one cannot help liking, in spite 
of various weaknesses in her char- 

nson. 1 vol., 12mo., in Lovell’s 

acter. Brought up in Rome, on the 
death of her father, Arden returns to 
his native village in Warwickshire, 
there to make acquaintance with the 
truest and freshest country people we 
have ever met on paper. The story 
is simply that of Arden’s life and 
marriage, but it is never wearisome 
because of the sharpness of the writ- 
ing, and we have to thank Miss Robin- 
son for a very good novel indeed. ”— 
Whitehall Review. 


New York J 'HN W. LOVELL COMPANY. 



HEALTH and VIGOR 

FOR THE BRAIN AND NERVES, 


CROSBY’S VITALIZED PHOS-PHITES. 


This is a standard preparation with all physicians who treat 
■nervous and mental disorders. 

Crosby's Vitalized Fhos-phites should be taken as a Special 
Brain Food. 

To build up worn-out nerves, to banish sleeplessness, neu- 
ralgia and sick headache. — Dr, Gwynn. 

To promote good digestion.— Dr. Mlmore. 

To “ stamp out ” consumption. — Dr. Churchill. 

To “ completly cure night sweats.” — John B. Quigley . 

To maintain the capabilities of the brain and nerves to per- 
form all functions even at the highest tension. — E. L. Kellogg . 

To restore the energy lost by nervousness, debility, over- 
exertion or enervated vital powers. — Dr. W. S. Wells. 

To repair the nerves that have been enfeebled by worry, de- 
pression, anxiety or deep grief. — Miss Mary Rankin. 

To strengthen the intellect so that study and deep mental 
application may be a pleasure and not a trial. — B. M. Couch. 

To develop good teeth, glossy hair, clear skin, handsome nails 
in the young, so that they may be an inheritance in later years. — 
Editor School Journal. 

To enlarge the capabilities for enjoyment. — National Journal 

of Education . 

To “make life a pleasure,” ‘‘not a daily suffering.” “I 
really urge yoii to put it to the test/ Miss Emily Faithfull. 

To amplify bodily and mental power to the present genera- 
tion and “prove the survival of the fittest” to the next. — Bismarck. 

There is no other Vital Phos-phite, none that is extracted 
from living animal and vegetable tissues. — Dr. Casper . 

To restore lost powers and abilities. — Dr. Bull . 

For sale by druggists or mail, $1. 

F. CROSBY CO., No. 56 West Twenty-fifth St., New York. 


LOVELL’S LIBRARY-CATALOGUE. 


185. Mysterious Island, Pt II. 15 
Mysterious Island, PtI 1 1 . 15 

186. Tom Brown at Oxford, 

2 Parts, each 15 

187. Thicker than Water.... 20 

188. In Silk Attire 20 

189. Scottish Chiefs, Part I.. 20 
Scottish Chiefs, Part II. 20 

190. Willy Reilly 20 

191. The Nautz Family 20 

192. Great Expectations 20 

193. Hist.of Pendennis,Pt I.. 20 
Hist. of Pendennis,Pt II 20 


194. Widow Bedott Papers ..20 

195. Daniel Deronda, Part I .. 20 
Daniel Deronda, Part II. 20 

196. AltioraPeto 20 

197. By the Gate of the Sea. 15 

198. Tales of a Traveller 20 


199. Life and Voyages of Co- 


lumbus, 2 Parts, each. 20 

200. The Pilgrim’s Progress . . 20 

201. MartinChuzzlewit,P’rt 1 . 20 
MartinChuzzlewitjP’t 1 1 . 20 

202. Theophrastus Such 

203. Disarmed 15 

204. Eugene Aram 20 

205. The Spanish Gypsy, &c. 20 

206. Cast up by the Sea 20 

207. Mill on the Floss, Part 1 . 15 
Mill on the Floss, P’t II . 15 

208. Brother Jacob, etc 10 

209. The Executor 20 

210. American Notes 15 

211. The Newcomes, Part I.. 20 
The Newcomes, Part II. 20 

212. The Privateersman 20 

213. The Three Feathers 20 

214. Phantom Fortune 

215. The Red Eric 20 

216. Lady Silverdale’s Sweet- 

heart . :o 

217. The Four Macnicol’s . ..10 


2 1 8. M r. Pisistrat usBro wn , M . P. 1 o 

219. Dombeyand Son, Part I.20 
Dombey and Son, Part II. 20 

220. Book of Snobs 10 

221. Fairy Tales, Illustrated. .20 

222. The Disowned 20 

223. Little Dorrit, Part 1 20 

Little Dorrit, Part II 20 

224. Abbotsford and New- 

stead Abbey 10 

225. Oliver Goldsmith, Black 10 

226. The Fire Brigade. 20 

227. Rifle and Hound in Cey- 
lon 20 

228. Our Mutual Friend, P’t T .20 
OurMutualFriend.P’t II. 20 

229. Paris Sketches 15 

230. Belinda 20 

231. Nicholas Nickleby.P’t 1 . 20 
NicholasNickleby,P’t 1 1 . 20 

232. Monarch of Mincing 

Lane .20 

233. Eight Years’ Wanderings 

in Ceylon 20 

234. Pictures from Italy 15 

235. Adventures of Philip, Pt 1 . 15 
Adventures of Philip, Pt 1 1 . 1 5 

236. Knickerbocker History 

of New York 


237. The Boy at Mugby 10 

238. The Virginians, Part I.. 20 
The Virginians, Part II. 20 

239. Erling the Bold 20 

240. Kenelm Chillingly 20 

241. Deep Down 20 

242. Samuel Brohl & Co 20 

243. Gautran 20 

244. Bleak House, Part I 20 

Bleak House, Part II... 20 

245. What Will He Do With 

It ? 2 Parts, each 20 

2 46. Sketches of YoungCouples. 10 

247. Devereux 20 

248. Life of Webster, Part 1 . 15 
Life of Webster, Pt. II. 15 

249. The Crayon Papers 20 

250. The Caxtons, Part I.... 15 
The Caxtons, Part II ... 15 

251. Autobiography of An- 

thony Trollope 20 

252. Critical Review’s, etc. ... 10 

253. Lucretia 20 

254. Peter the Whaler 20 

255. Last of the Barons. Pt 1 . 15 
Last of the Barons, Pt. 1 1 . 15 

256. Eastern Sketches 15 

257. All in a Garden Fair.... 20 

258. File No. 1 13 20 

259. The Parisians, Part I... 20 
The Parisians, Part 1 1 .. 20 

260. Mrs. Darling’s Letters. ..20 


261. Master Humphrey’s 

Clock 10 

262. Fatal Boots, etc 10 

263. The Alhambra 15 

264. The Four Georges 10 

265. Plutarch’s Lives, 5 Pts. $1. 

266. Under the Red Flag 10 

267. TheHaunted House, etc. 10 

268. When the Ship Comes 

Home. 10 

269. One False, both Fair... .20 


270. The Mudfog Papers, etc. 10 

271. My Novel, 3 Parts, each.20 

272. Conquest of Granada. ..20 

273. Sketches by Boz 20 

274. A Christmas Carol, etc. . 15 

275. lone Stewart 20 

276. Harold, 2 Parts, each... 15 

277. Dora Thorne 20 

278. Maid of Athens. 20 

279. Conquest of Spain 10 

280. Fitzboodle Papers, etc. . 10 

281. Bracebridge Hall 20 

282. Uncommercial Traveller.20 

283. Roundabout Papers 20 

284. Rossmoyne 20 

285. A Legend of the Rhine, 

etc 10 

286. Cox’s Diary, etc 10 

287. Beyond Pardon 20 

2S8. Somebody’sLuggage,etc. 10 

289. Godolphin . . 20 

290. Salmagundi 

291. Famous Funny Fellows. 20 

292. Irish Sketches, etc 20 

293. The Battle of Life, etc.. . 10 

294. Pilgrims of the Rhine.. . 15 

295. Random Shots 20 

296. Men’s Wives. .. 10 

297. Mystery of Edwin Drood.20 


298. Reprinted Pieces 20 

299. Astoria ....20 

300. Novels by Eminent Handsio 

301. Companions of Columbus2o 

302. No Thoroughfare 10 

303. Character Sketches, etc. 10 

304. Christmas Books 20 

305. A Tour on the Prairies... 10 

306. Ballads 15 

307. Yellowplush Papers 10 

308. Life of Mahomet, Part 1 . 15 
Life of Mahomet, Pt. II. 15 

309. Sketches and Travels in 

London 10 

310. Oliver Goldsmith, Irving.20 

3 1 1. Captain Bonneville .... 20 

312. Golden Girls 20 

313. English Hunorifts. .... 15 

314. Moorish Chronicles 10 

315. Winifred Power 20 

316. Great Hoggarty Diamond 10 

317. Pausanias 13 

318. The New Abelard 20 

319. A Real Queen 20 

320. The Rose and the King. 20 

321. Wolfert’s Roost and Mis- 

cellanies, bv Irving.. • • 10 

322. Mark Seaworth .... 20 

323. Life of Paul Jones 20 

324. Round the World 20 

325. Elbow Room 20 

The Wizard’s Son 25 

327. Harry Lorrequer 20 

328. How It All Came Round. 20 
32c). Dante Rosetti’s Poems. 20 

330. The Canon’s Ward 20 

331. Lucile, by O. Meredith. 20 

332. Every Day Cook Book.. 20 

333. Lays of Ancient Rome . . 20 

334. Life of Burns 20 

335. The Young Foresters. . .20 

336. John Bull and His Island 20 

337. Salt Water, by Kingston. 20 

338. The Midshipman 20 

339. Proctor’s Poems 20 

340. Clayton’s Rangers 20 

341. Schiller’s Poems • 20 

342. Goethe’s Faust 20 

343. Goethe’s Poems 20 

344. Life of Thackeray 10 

345. Dante’s Vision of Hell, 
Purgatoryand Paradise.. 20 

346. An Interesting Case 20 

347. Life of Byron, Nichol... 10 

348. Life of Bunyan 10 

349. Valerie’s Fate. 10 

350. Grandfather Lickshingle.20 

351. Lays of the Scottish Ca- 

valiers 20 

352. Willis’ Poems 20 

353. Tales of the French Re- 

volution 15 

354. Loom and Lugger ... ...20 

355. More Leaves from a Life 

in the Highlands. ..... 15 

356. Hygiene of the Brain. ..25 

357. Berkeley the Banker 20 

358. Homes Abroad 15 

359. Scott’s Lady of the Lake, 

with notes....... 20 

360. Modern Christianity a 
civilized Heathenism.. ..15 


THE CELEBRATED 



Grand, Square and Upright 



PIANOFORTES. 

The demands now made by an educated musical public are so exacting that very few 
Pianoforte Manufacturers can produce Instruments that will stand the test which merit 
requires. SOUMER & CO., as Manufacturers, rank amongst these chosen few, who are 
acknowledged to be makers of standard instruments. In these days, when Manufacturers 
urge the low price of their wares rather than their superior quality as an inducement to 
i purchase, i t may not be amiss to suggest that, in a Piano, quality and price are too in- 
| separably .joined to expect the one without the other.* 

j Every Piano ought to be judged as to the quality of its tone, its touch, and its work- 
j manship; if any one of these is wanting in excellence, however good the others may be, 
the instrument will be imperfect. It is the combination of these qualities in the highest 
degree that constitutes the perfect Piano, and it is this combination that has given the 
“ SOHMER ” its honorable position with the trade and the public. 

Received First Prize Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 1876. 
Received First Prize at Exhibition, Montreal, Canada, 1881 & 1882. 

SOHMER & CO., Manufacturers, 

149-155 E. 14th St., New York. 










• 




f 






















































































































' 


. ,/ 

f (. 
































































V N ” 




^ ^ - 

v\ v : 

♦ <£? U c> ° 

4 _<ft •«, 



*b 

♦ v? 


%o° %***;^\^ \/ 

KnSfc ^ .sS& V / ,-Jste-, % 


A*” t'^L*. V 

•»b v* /^Sfll^** ^ o* 



* ^oV 



. 4 < 2 <. 




„ . ,<*/ V'P®?V % °-^.^ ,G 

, % °’ 1 o 0 ^ .^> ^°o * $ *£a&; *% >°\* 

■ %0« ’4H&'. 

o -a.* ”V<» ’ > ^ ' 7 ^> 

. % «> c> ^ o 0 ^ V'w;.- ^ ^ 

/Or O *«.-»• iO >s> * O N O Q ,^» 

-A A, v * - ^ * T V * 

*. V y» * 

• 

aV-^. * 

,* . -v Nf> “. _ 

/ . '•'o • A * -C5 O. ^ • 4 S 


• - A O. * 

* ~ ^ m \vr » ft * *5 

<t r Os *■ 'W~ ‘> n 0 ^ * \v\^« ^ r 

> aV O **,*»• aO ^ * 

ft *'*°* 4 O ^ - * 

yrS V ? 




• c . 0 J 

* «? °b> • 

•* .^y <$+, 



’ A°' %• 

0 ^ *> 



• 0 °»* 

^ *0*0° ^ *" 1 A 0 .. Vs 

V f * * °* C* a0 ^ 

•#s & •*!«. „•£* .v agy . 



* 4 ? ^ 

<> '<>•** «C? \b, 

* ^6 ,0^ c 0 " 0 ♦ 

^ %r Cl O 

5 > * 4 0 

^>- -'•o* ° 

• 4 0 

o ^ 

• ^ Os %"W**V o 0 

AV O *" * . 1 • <0 


% 



> ^ *0. A 0 V 5 l!nL% ^ 



* 

4 * ^ 

<s '••*• 

^ ,V^' X 0 ° .' 

^ov* *' 

A Of, 

^ ^^UAVsN^ ' ^ r\ *1 

fA ^ £TV ^ 

▼ #S A- * 0 At O 

0 " 0 \V <U 

o 




v • * • °-> 




A. <* 



c 5 : 

* <L V * 



°*i+ *••'* A 0 v v 

c> -aP v * % 

^ ^ $* - 

*v ^ ^ ° 

* A. 



• % •& ♦- 
: v* v • 


4 <L V 



: .* 

• o>«* * 

* 4 ? *%> o 


jV * »• ' * * *<$. 

* ~0 JP A V y>^/ * *£ 

* ^ <y K A 


\ ^ ^ ** 
o ^ * 

°<t* * * >'* ^ 

c\ *<y , 

4 , * i\ „ * *Pa *• 

‘ "° : 


S'* ^ 0 ^ ♦- 

^ " V^ v 


c$ *> : 

4 < 3 L V V r^ *> 



% 0 ij 

_ • <L^ 

<*> * 0li ° ^\V 

* ^ 




*» > ’ *’ A° **• « 

. 0 ’ ,••*** *> 



% 0 .-4 <■ 

*0 v* : 

: j.° v, • 

X * * — ^ +^M'<*’ % * -9 

• * ** -VN /Jl- \ / *'> 

• <r ^ v/^ 

♦ ^y e 

4 <L V ^rU 




o A V** 

* *$► 0 


• < 


© 

0 O 

;* ^ ^ 

A <\ * o m a 

V . t * • . <$> 

*&(\l/£%> * ^-p 4 

* V*0 X 

o *5 ^ 

O *^^V f ^ f % * S) %' X*ACsO- . <, 

%.*••'" A 0 * 4 J. *»«» !> ,■?>* 

^ C^ A 0 V S 5 !nL'-V ^ V f 

.*» ^c,^ ^ » 






